WHO Meetings

The 71st Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe was held virtually from 13-15 September 2021, and ESMO submitted statements on the following topics:

• An ESMO Statement submitted to the 71st Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe welcomed the Resolution on the European Immunization Agenda 2030, which urges Member States to enhance commitment to immunisation as a public health priority and commit to achieving the vision and goals outlined in the European Immunization Agenda 2030, especially against cancer-causing pathogens. ESMO’s statement also suggested that for the safety and administration of new vaccines the National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups should leverage the technical expertise of Non-State Actors like ESMO and other stakeholders as appropriate. For example, patients with cancer were largely excluded from the pivotal trials of the COVID-19 vaccines being tested. Thus, ESMO as a scientific society developed 10 statements clarifying the impact of COVID-19 vaccination on patients with cancer and reinforced the message by developing a strong ‘ESMO Call to Action’ which was endorsed by over 50 healthcare professional and patient organisations.
• An ESMO Statement submitted to the 71st Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe welcomed the Resolution that was adopted ‘Realizing the potential of primary health care: lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and implications for future directions in the WHO European Region’. The ESMO statement urges Member States to strengthen primary health care, ensure robust referral services to secondary and tertiary levels where cancer is treated and to work towards including a comprehensive set of essential cancer services in national universal health coverage packages. The ESMO statement highlighted ESMO resources that can support governments to achieve these goals such as the ESMO-ASCO Global Curriculum in Medical Oncology, the ESMO Clinical Practice Guides, the ESMO-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale.
• An ESMO Statement submitted to the 71st Session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe welcomed the report ‘Response to the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned to date from the WHO European Region’. In the statement, ESMO agreed with the ambitious and comprehensive measures proposed, and asked Member States to include more detailed measures to protect cancer patients and health care professionals in national health emergency plans. ESMO’s statement also highlighted how its resources could be valuable in support of WHO’s global efforts, such as the ‘ESMO COVID-19 and Cancer Portal’ which includes ‘ESMO recommendations for cancer management in the era of COVID-19’ for oncology professionals, a guide for patients, a webinar series, and the ESMO-CoCARE registry to gather clinical data.

The 74th World Health Assembly was held virtually between 24-31 May 2021, and ESMO delivered statements on the following topics:

• An ESMO statement supported the Assembly’s decision to extend to 2030 the mandate of the WHO Global Coordination Mechanism on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs), which include cancer. The Global Coordination Mechanism is a unique WHO initiative led by Member States. It has the task of coordinating all stakeholders (including societies like ESMO) towards the implementation of the WHO Global Action Plan on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Disease which has also been extended to 2030. For more information, please click here.
• ESMO delivered a statement that welcomed the Resolution on ‘Protecting, safeguarding and investing in the health and care workforce’. The Resolution honors and recognizes the selfless efforts of all health and care professionals across the globe, including those who risked their lives to assist both people with COVID-19 and patients with other illnesses during the pandemic. The Resolution reinforces WHO’s dedication of 2021 as the International Year of Health and Care Workers and its campaign to ‘Protect. Invest. Together.’ For more information, please click here.
• An ESMO statement welcomed the Resolution on Social Determinants of Health previously approved by the WHO Executive Board in January 2021. The Resolution supports achieving the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals, many of which address the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health that can positively influence good health and well-being. For more information, please click here.
• An ESMO statement welcomed the Resolution on ‘Strengthening WHO preparedness for and response to health emergencies’ which aims to improve the ability of WHO to address the current pandemic and future health emergencies. Recognizing that addressing a global pandemic requires multi-stakeholder collaboration and the pooling of knowledge and resources, the statement encouraged WHO to leverage resources developed by professional societies like ESMO. For more information, please click here.

The 148th WHO Executive Board Meeting was held virtually between 18-26 January 2021, during which ESMO’s ‘Official Relations with WHO’ status was renewed. ESMO also delivered statements on the following topics:

• ESMO delivered an official statement related to the WHO Director General’s Report on WHO’s COVID-19 Response. ESMO’s statement commended WHO’s efforts addressing the global pandemic. It raised awareness of ESMO’s COVID-19 and Cancer Portal that provides information for oncology professionals as well as patients and the public. It also highlighted the recently published ESMO statements addressing issues and concerns on immunising patients with cancer against COVID-19, reinforced by the strong  ESMO Call to Action on COVID-19 vaccinations and patients with cancer: Vaccinate. Monitor. Educate. For more information, please click here.
• ESMO delivered an official statement related to the WHO Director-General’s Report on the UN’s ‘Political Declaration of the third high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases’. The WHO Report noted the mid-point evaluation of the WHO Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, which has been extended from 2013-2020 to 2030. ESMO raised concern that the Report states that many WHO Member States are not on track to achieve the Sustainable Development and Political Declaration goals. For more information, please click here.
• ESMO delivered an official statement related to the WHO Director-General’s Report on ‘Expanding access to effective treatments for cancer and rare and orphan diseases, including medicines, vaccines, medical devices, diagnostics, assistive products, cell- and gene-based therapies and other health technologies; and improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines, and other health products’. The statement highlighted key ESMO resources that can be of assistance to Member States in their strategies to appropriately select and prescribe cancer medicines, such as the ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines, the ESMO-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS), and the ESMO strategic recommendations to prevent and manage shortages of cancer medicines. For more information, please click here.

ESMO delivered an official statement in support of the WHO ‘COVID-19 Response’ Resolution unanimously adopted at the 2020 World Health Assembly, 18-19 May 2020.

ESMO welcomed the WHO strategy and supports WHO’s recommendations to address a wide range of challenges the pandemic poses to people with health issues, especially due to service disruption, lack of sufficient resources, and patient travel restrictions.

The ESMO statement calls on governments to especially protect people at high-risk of COVID-19 such as healthcare professionals and people with pre-existing conditions, including cancer. It requests that health authorities secure the availability of essential cancer and palliative services, and notes that the ESMO-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale can help support value-based decisions for resource allocation. Where shortages exist, ESMO asks governments to provide institutes and clinicians with ethical and methodological decision-making guidance. For cancer patients who cannot, or are afraid to, travel to a hospital for treatment it is essential that countries have in place an action plan.

The ESMO statement makes WHO and its Member States aware that ESMO is fully supporting WHO’s global efforts through our ESMO COVID-19 and Cancer Portal, which includes information, educational materials, ESMO recommendations for cancer management in the era of COVID-19 for oncology professionals, an ESMO Guide for Cancer Patients on cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic, and links to WHO norms and guidance. In addition, the ESMO Statement raises awareness of the ESMO-CoCARE Registry, which is an international collaborative initiative with a cross-tumour database, designed to gather clinical data on the virus’s impact on cancer patients in order to provide recommendations on how to minimise their risks during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the recovery phase.

In February 2020, ESMO endorsed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem with an official statement at the WHO Executive Board Meeting in Geneva.

Several members of the ESMO Gynecological Cancer Faculty provided input to the WHO strategy and in particular on the topic of the management of invasive cervical cancer. ESMO’s participation in this WHO project raised awareness that the ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines on Cervical Cancer, and Supportive and Palliative Care can help countries achieve the goal of 90% treatment and care for cervical cancer cases through use of evidence-based treatment protocols. The ESMO Patient Guide on Cervical Cancer can also be a useful resource to help patients understand their treatment options.

As a follow-up to the 2020 World Health Assembly, the WHO global strategy towards eliminating cervical cancer was adopted by the 194 WHO Member States, and aims to achieve the ’90-70-90’ interim targets below by 2030:

• 90% of girls are fully vaccinated with the HPV vaccine by 15 years of age
• 70% of women are covered by screening with a high-performance test
• 90% of women identified with cervical disease receive treatment.

Achieving these targets would see the median cervical cancer incidence rate would fall by 10%, setting the world on the path to avert 70 million cases in the century

WHO has provided a list of interventions necessary to address cervical cancer in the article  How to reduce the impact of cervical cancer worldwide: Gaps and priority areas identified through the essential cancer and primary care packages: An analysis of effective interventions. The data is based on the 2017 WHO Noncommunicable Disease Country Capacity Survey, and assesses the availability of health services for cervical cancer in the 194 WHO Member States, and the percentage of countries that offer or reimburse those services for their citizens. The authors propose 2 sets of intervention packages. The first is an Essential Cancer Package with 9 interventions: HPV vaccination, cervical screening, early diagnosis, pathology, radiation, surgery, chemotherapy, palliative care, and a cancer registry to monitor the process and measure progress. The second is a Primary Care Package with 5 interventions which includes HPV vaccination, cervical screening, early diagnosis, palliative care, and a non-communicable disease plan necessary to coordinate national cancer services. The data from the WHO survey shows that only 21% of countries offer their citizens the Essential Cancer Package of 9 interventions and 19.1% the Primary Care Package, underlining the need to implement the WHO global strategy towards eliminating cervical cancer.

ESMO attended the 146th WHO Executive Board Meeting, which was held between 3-8 February 2020. At this meeting, ESMO delivered an official statement on the agenda item regarding the WHO global strategy towards eliminating cervical cancer as a public health problem.

ESMO welcomed the WHO strategy and supported WHO’s recommendation that to achieve the goal of 90% treatment and care for cervical cancer cases, countries must implement evidence-based clinical treatment guidelines.

ESMO noted to all WHO Member States that ESMO has guidelines on Cervical Cancer, and Supportive and Palliative Care, which are freely available on the ESMO website, and accompanied by Patient Guides written in a language that patients can understand. In addition, ESMO called on all WHO Member States to fully integrate the WHO cervical cancer elimination strategy into national Universal Health Coverage programs, in order to fulfill their commitment to implement the 2017 WHO Cancer Resolution and to reduce premature deaths from cancer by 25% by 2025 and 33% by 2030.

For more information, please click here.

During the 2019 WHA, an ESMO statement requested that the 2019 UN Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) specifically state: ‘Country governments must guarantee their entire population ‘UHC benefit packages’ that ensure financial protection, and include a core set of comprehensive, safe, affordable, effective and high-quality health services for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and palliative care of noncommunicable diseases, including cancer, delivered by an adequate, and well-trained workforce’. The final version of the 2019 UN Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage includes all of the points mentioned in the ESMO statement.

A second ESMO statement focussed on the WHO ‘Draft roadmap for access to medicines, vaccines and other health products, 2019-2023’. The roadmap aligns with the WHO 2019-2023 triple billion target to ensure that one billion more people benefit from UHC; one billion more people have better protection from health emergencies; and one billion more people enjoy better health and well-being. The ESMO statement called for the need to ensure that access to medicines is improved not only at the primary healthcare level but also at the secondary and tertiary levels where cancer care is provided. Subsequent WHO documents include mention of the need to strengthen of primary care and referral services to secondary and tertiary care.

ESMO attended the 144th WHO Executive Board Meeting, which was held between 25 January and 1 February 2019. At this meeting, ESMO delivered three official statements with the following messages:

• ESMO requested that the 2019 UN Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage include the provision of a set of cost-effective essential cancer and palliative care services delivered at the primary and secondary healthcare level.
• ESMO resources such as the ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines and the ESMO-MCBS can support countries achieve the goals of the WHO Roadmap on Access to Medicines.
• ESMO endorsed the UICC-led statement for a WHO strategy to eliminate cervical cancer.

During the 2018 World Health Assembly, ESMO emphasized the importance of cancer as a priority on the WHO global agenda. An ESMO statement advocated for the strengthening of health systems to achieve Universal Health Coverage and to provide essential healthcare services to the millions of cancer patients who die prematurely due to lack of access to appropriate treatment. In particular, ESMO called on the WHO to ensure that governments would be required to take specific actions in the interest of cancer control. A second ESMO statement on the issue of shortages of medicines ESMO provided WHO with recommendations by ESMO and the Economist Intelligence Unit on how to prevent shortages and supported the WHO Global Reporting System which will monitor the supply of essential cancer medicines.

ESMO attended the 142^nd WHO Executive Board Meeting, which was held between 22-27 January 2018. At this meeting, ESMO delivered an official statement on the topic of ‘Addressing the global shortage of, and access to, medicines and vaccines’.  In its statement ESMO welcomed a WHO global medicine shortage notification system not only for medicines on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (EML), but in a second step for all medicines that provide a proven significant magnitude of clinical benefit. ESMO encouraged WHO to consider the 2017 policy recommendations published by ESMO and The Economist Intelligence Unit on how to prevent and manage shortages of cancer medicines. These ESMO recommendations include the need to provide a clear definition of a medicine shortage, introduce legislation for early notification, establish strategic plans for shortages at national and institutional levels, develop a harmonized web-based platform, assess risks of shortages for medicines on the WHO EML, introduce incentives for production, and establish procurement models.

An ESMO statement was delivered during the 2017 World Health Assembly supporting the adoption of the 2017 WHO Cancer Resolution whose aim is to reduce cancer deaths and achieve universal health coverage. The actions recommended in the Resolution are designed to improve access and affordability of quality cancer care and its integration into national healthcare systems. As an organisation representing medical oncologists, ESMO supports WHO policies that ensure patients have timely access to safe, affordable, effective, high-quality medicines, treatment and care.

ESMO attended the 140th WHO Executive Board Meeting, which was held between 23-31 January 2017. ESMO’s official statement during the meeting advocated for the urgent need for a robust and comprehensive Cancer Resolution that can help drive national progress, particularly in low- and middle-income countries that face the biggest challenges of a rapidly growing cancer burden.

ESMO advocated for the ‘Cancer Resolution’ because it believes the Resolution could:

• Establish the core disciplines and services for a holistic, impactful and scalable cancer response, adapted to the local burden and aligned with national healthcare capacities for cancer care.
• Bring together in one document existing commitments from a series of World Health Assembly resolutions that are highly relevant for cancer, including those on palliative care, access to surgery and anaesthesia, essential medicines, patient-centred primary care, as well as the life course and aging agenda.
• Reinforce the mandate for the non-communicable disease (NCD) team at WHO to respond to Member States’ requests for technical assistance and guidance on cancer.
• Emphasise the opportunities for integration and efficiencies of building on existing health services such as HIV-AIDs, child adolescent health or reproductive health and maternal services.
• Provide a framework for effective international engagement, because there are a number of key allied agencies and organisations who stand ready with the expertise and tools required to assist.

ESMO’s advocacy efforts were supported by the ESMO National Representatives who contacted the Ministry of Health of those countries represented on the WHO Executive Board.

For more information, please click here.

During the 2016 World Health Assembly, ESMO co-hosted a side-event on the topic of ‘Are we making the right investments for optimal cancer control? A global dialogue’. The outcome of this event was that several governments called on the WHO to present a ‘Cancer Resolution’ for adoption during the 2017 World Health Assembly.

ESMO, the UICC, the NCD Alliance and other endorsing partners delivered a joint statement at the 2014 World Health Assembly in Geneva supporting the WHO Resolution ‘Strengthening of palliative care as a component of integrated treatment throughout the life course’. The WHO 'Palliative Care Resolution' was subsequently adopted by the WHO Member States and calls for increased access to palliative care to relieve unnecessary suffering worldwide.

Subsequently in 2016, ESMO supported a successful international initiative to ensure that the Outcome Document of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem contained recommendation to ensure access to controlled substances, such as opioids, for legitimate medical and scientific purposes, while preventing their diversion.