Childhood cancer: Every child's chance, wherever they're born.
About 400,000 children develop cancer every year. Close to 90% of them live in low- and middle-income countries, where fewer than 30% survive. In every study that could measure it, treating them there was very cost-effective.
Ryan K. Hertel · heyitskenton
The problem
What we're up against.
Where a child lives sets the odds.
About 400,000 children develop cancer every year, close to 90% of them in low- and middle-income countries, where fewer than 30% survive. Five-year survival ranges from 8.1% in eastern Africa to 83% in North America.
A goal for every child.
WHO's goal is survival of at least 60% for all children with cancer by 2030, and no low-income or lower-middle-income country had reached it when the effort began.
Lives at stake.
Without new investment, 11.1 million children will die of cancer from 2020 to 2050, 84.1% of them in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.
In America, most survive.
About 9,680 children in America will be diagnosed with cancer in 2026, and 85% of children with cancer now survive five years or more.
What works
Proven, and ready to grow.
Very cost-effective.
In all 12 studies that could measure it, treating childhood cancer in low- and middle-income countries counted as very cost-effective.
A strong return.
Scaling up care worldwide would return about $3 for every dollar invested, by a Lancet Oncology Commission's estimate.
A unit that changes the odds.
When Recife, Brazil, built a dedicated children's cancer unit, five-year survival without a relapse or other setback for children with leukemia rose from 32% to 63%.
Lymphoma, treated for little.
In Uganda, 55% of children treated for Burkitt lymphoma were alive two years on, at about $97 per healthy year of life gained.
Help families stay the course.
When centers in Africa covered treatment and travel costs for children with a kidney cancer, families abandoning treatment fell from 23% to 12%.
What a family could fund
Where the money goes furthest.
Medicines, free to countries.
St. Jude committed $200 million over six years to a platform with WHO that gives medicines at no cost to participating countries, aiming to treat about 120,000 children.
Already reaching children.
Deliveries began in 2025, first to Mongolia and Uzbekistan, to reach about 5,000 children that year, with a goal of 50 countries.
Room to grow.
The platform works with 12 countries so far, and WHO says underfunded demand disrupts the supply of medicines.
Hospitals helping hospitals.
The St. Jude Global Alliance links more than 400 institutions in more than 80 countries, by its own count.
Philanthropy already carries care.
At El Salvador's national children's hospital, charitable foundations paid 44.2% of the costs of its children's cancer unit.
Honest limits
What money can't promise.
Many are never diagnosed.
In one global estimate, 43% of childhood cancer cases went undiagnosed, and no treatment budget reaches a child who's never found.
Families stop treatment.
Abandoned treatment compromises survival for one in seven children with cancer worldwide, 99% of it in low- and middle-income countries, and poverty drives it.
Medicines are missing.
Before the platform, only about 45% of essential childhood cancer medicines were available in the hospitals surveyed, and WHO says supplying medicines alone isn't enough.
Too few specialists.
17 African countries had no specialist in children's cancer, and the continent averages 205 new cases per specialist.
Costs are likely higher than they look.
Many costing studies left out key costs, so true treatment costs are higher than published.
Hard questions
Asked and answered.
You might ask
Isn't cancer care too expensive for poor countries?
Ryan
No. Every study that could measure it found treatment very cost-effective, and WHO cites an estimate of about 3 cents a person to treat selected childhood cancers in a low-income country.
You might ask
Why not just fund research?
Ryan
Research matters, but most childhood cancers can already be cured with generic medicines, surgery and radiotherapy, and fully delivering the care that exists could lift global five-year survival from 37.4% to about 80.8%.
You might ask
What about children who can't be cured?
Ryan
Relief of suffering is possible for every child, and WHO counts palliative care as a core part of their care.
In the slider
See what your fortune could do here.
Childhood cancer
The slider prices this cause with these numbers:
- Treating one child cost $10,854 at a children's cancer unit in Haiti, counting the whole unit's running costs.
- The whole need is the children who develop cancer each year in low- and middle-income countries: close to 90% of 400,000, or about 360,000.
- The price buys treatment, not a cure: at the Haiti unit, about 35% of children survived five years.
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Sources
Every number in this chapter, and where it came from.
Source 1: Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines (opens in a new tab)
World Health Organization. Checked 16 October 2026.
BMJ Global Health, 31 October 2019. Checked 16 October 2026.
The Lancet Oncology, 22 May 2019. Checked 16 October 2026.
A model of every country, calibrated to survival data.
Source 4: Childhood cancer (opens in a new tab)
World Health Organization, 10 March 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.
PLOS Global Public Health, 19 August 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.
The Lancet Oncology, 1 April 2020. Checked 16 October 2026.
Source 7: Childhood Cancer (opens in a new tab)
American Cancer Society. Checked 16 October 2026.
JAMA, May 2004. Checked 16 October 2026.
Recife, Brazil. A before-and-after comparison, not a randomized trial.
Cancer, 6 March 2019. Checked 16 October 2026.
Pediatric Blood & Cancer, 11 May 2020. Checked 16 October 2026.
Compared with earlier patients, not a randomized trial.
World Health Organization, 13 December 2021. Checked 16 October 2026.
World Health Organization, 11 February 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.
Source 13: New strategy to build a healthier market for childhood cancer medicines (opens in a new tab)
World Health Organization, 15 September 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.
Source 14: St. Jude Global Alliance (opens in a new tab)
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Checked 16 October 2026.
The hospital's own account.
Cancer, 15 September 2017. Checked 16 October 2026.
The Lancet Oncology, 26 February 2019. Checked 16 October 2026.
A model of every country, for 2015.
Source 17: Magnitude of Treatment Abandonment in Childhood Cancer (Friedrich and others) (opens in a new tab)
PLOS ONE, 30 September 2015. Checked 16 October 2026.
A survey of clinicians in 101 countries.
Source 18: Childhood cancer medicines market shaping strategy 2026-2030 (opens in a new tab)
World Health Organization. Checked 16 October 2026.
BMJ Global Health, 25 July 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.
Source 20: CureAll framework: WHO global initiative for childhood cancer (opens in a new tab)
World Health Organization, 28 October 2021. Checked 16 October 2026.
ecancermedicalscience, 28 February 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.
Data from 2017 and 2018.