The World Cancer Declaration: is the world catching up?

Comment The World Cancer Declaration: is the world catching up? In 2008, at the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) World Cancer Congress, cancer leaders approved and issued the World Cancer Declaration, 1 demonstrating their desire to see cancer eliminated as a life-threatening disease for future generations. The declaration presented 11 targets which, if achieved by 2020, would establish momentum towards their longer term ambition. The declaration calls on leaders around the world to develop and implement national cancer control plans, to build and use population-based cancer registries, to implement policies to reduce the burden of cancer risk factors and prevent those cancers that can be prevented, to enhance screening and early detection capabilities, improve access to diagnosis and treatment, improve training and support for cancer health workers, and to ensure that palliative care and pain relief is made available to all patients in need, but especially in the last days of life. There are now 386 member organisations of UICC in over 100 countries and this number is expected to double in the next 18 months. Independent of governments, the growing number of UICC member organisations—eg, the American Cancer Society and the Lance Armstrong Foundation—has demonstrated that there are eff ective solutions to address cancer issues and deliver elements of the declaration. For example, World Cancer Day, which took place on Feb 4, 2010, united UICC members in raising the profi le of the link between infections and cancer. More than 2·4 billion people were exposed to the key message of the campaign—that cancer can be prevented too—and members in individual countries ran their own events to ensure the day was recognised and publicised by their local media. UICC has recently become more active in advocating its ambitions in the political sphere. In early 2009, UICC joined forces with the International Diabetes Federation and the World Heart Federation to form the Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Alliance. This unique, common interest Alliance was established as an advocacy group to raise political awareness of the worldwide socioeconomic and health impact of NCDs, which account for 35 million (60%) of deaths in the world each year, 9 million of which can be considered premature and therefore avoidable deaths. 2 In February this year, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease joined the Alliance, bringing the total number of organisations represented by the NCD Alliance to more than 880 in over 170 countries. …