Fighting cancer through demonstration projects

PACT Strategy

PACT has formulated the following three-point strategy to implement its aims:

1. To identify and assess a country's most pressing cancer needs so that partners and donors can effectively respond.
2. To establish PACT Model Demonstration Sites (PMDS) as an example of the value and efficacy of multidisciplinary, inter-agency cooperation in combating cancer. Such sites will highlight PACT's activities and help raise public awareness as a forerunner to larger regional/global initiatives. Model Demonstrations Sites selected so far include Albania, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Vietnam and Yemen.
3. To set up comprehensive regional training networks for health care professionals. In particular, it aims to encourage trained staff to stay in their home countries with ongoing professional development programmes and investment in modern technology and facilities.

National Cancer Control Programme

As defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), a National Cancer Control Programme “is a public health programme designed to reduce the number of cancer cases and deaths and improve quality of life of cancer patients, through the systematic and equitable implementation of evidence-based strategies for prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and palliation, making the best use of available resources. A comprehensive national cancer programme evaluates the various ways to control disease and implements those that are the most cost-effective and beneficial for the largest part of the population. It promotes the development of treatment guidelines, place emphasis on preventing cancers or detecting cases early so that they can be cured, and provide as much comfort as possible to patients with advanced disease.”

PACT promotes the concept of National Cancer Control Planning as the most efficient way to tackle the cancer problem in a country. Each country has particular features in terms of the cancer burden, cancer risk factors, culture, health system, and available financial and human resources as well as infrastructure. They should be carefully assessed in order to establish realistic and achievable priorities for action. To assist ministries of health in this regard, in collaboration with its partners, PACT offers a comprehensive needs assessment review service called imPACT (integrated missions of PACT). Any IAEA Member State can request an imPACT review by contacting the PACT Programme Office.