The World Health Organization and global partners, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, have announced a  new global initiative to address the disparity between childhood cancer survival in low and middle-income countries versus high-income countries was announced.

Each year, more than 300,000 children 19 and younger are diagnosed with cancer. About 8 in 10 of these children live in low- and middle-income countries where their survival rate is often near 20%. This is a stark contrast to higher-income countries, where cure rates exceed 80% for many common childhood cancers.