Every year, more than 400,000 children worldwide are affected by cancer. The chance of curing childhood cancer in the poorest countries is less than 10%. A big contrast to the 75-80% cure rate for children with cancer in rich countries such as the Netherlands. Gita Gallé : 'Sharing knowledge and expertise with colleagues in hospitals is an effective approach to reduce the difference in the chance of cure. At partner hospitals that we have been working with for a long time, survival has increased from less than 10 to 30%. We are therefore very pleased that together with World Child Cancer NL, with tremendous support from the AFAS Foundation, we are entering into a formal partnership with Kenyatta National Hospital.
Gertjan Kaspers, Director Academy & Outreach is looking forward to the cooperation: 'In Kenya we see that there is more attention for child cancer, also because of the WHO's appeal on this subject. An important first step is the cooperation with the largest hospitals in Kenya, KNH and Moi Teaching & Referral Hospital (MTRH). For the future, I expect that we will also focus on more knowledge about childhood cancer among the population and primary health care workers, so that cancer diagnoses are missed less often and they are referred more quickly. Moreover, we are going to pay more attention to the children who have been cured, the survivors.
In addition to KNH in Nairobi, the Outreach program has similar twinning programs with MTRH (Eldoret, Kenya), University Clinical Center of Kosovo (Pristina, Kosovo), Dr. Sardjito General Hospital (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), Dr. Hasan Sadikin General Hospital (Bandung, Indonesia) and Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (Blantyre, Malawi). The goal is to contribute to 60% cure of the "curable types of cancer" by 2030 worldwide, by further expanding the number of twinning partners in Sub-Saharan Africa and Indonesia in the coming years.