With the aim of working on national plans to address pediatric cancer, the treatment protocol for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer, was presented to the Ministry of Health.
Paraguay has been working for four years with the treatment protocol for acute lymphoblastic leukemia in childhood, through the support of St. Jude Research Hospital (USA) and the World Health Organization (WHO), who presented said document.
The most common childhood cancer is acute lymphoblastic leukemia. In high-resource countries, patients have a 90% chance of being cured, while in low-resource countries, the chance is only 20%, because many of them do not even reach diagnosis.
In this regard, Mónika Mestger, oncologist, pediatrician and director of the St. Jude global program for Central and South America, mentioned that said health establishment has a global program to work in alliances with various countries and the WHO in the area of childhood cancer. .
In turn, he pointed out that the vision of the hospital is that no pediatric patient dies, that everyone has access to quality diagnosis and treatment, in the country where they live.
He also indicated that together with the WHO they launched a global initiative for childhood cancer, which provides a budget to help different countries participate in it and, through the hiring of consultants, develop a children’s plan.
“We see this treatment protocol as one of the necessary products for the initiative, but also for a national cancer plan. One is needed to treat children in a unified way, which we know the benefit to children is enormous,” she remarked.
