“I want to be cured and go home,” says Hasnain, a cancer patient undergoing treatment at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS). Over the last 2 decades, around 18 000 paediatric cancer patients from the Islamabad Capital Territory, Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have been treated at PIMS.

In Pakistan, between 8000 and 10 000 children are diagnosed each year with cancer. Limited access to treatment is one of the primary factors contributing to the country's low survival rate for childhood cancer – 30% according to estimates ­– compared to a survival rate of 80% in higher-income countries.

Childhood cancer is one of the noncommunicable diseases severely affecting public health in Pakistan. NCDs, the world’s leading killers, account for nearly 75% of all global deaths. In Pakistan, these diseases cause 53% of all deaths, driven by rising burdens of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, and chronic respiratory conditions, compounded by lifestyle and environmental risk factors.

“I want to recover soon so that I can go back to school and complete my education,” says Amina Bibi, a 12-year-old girl battling blood cancer for the past 8 months who has been under treatment at PIMS. Her dream, like Hasnain's, is of a future free from intravenous drips and hospital corridors.

In July 2025, Pakistan signed an agreement with WHO to become the second country in the Eastern Mediterranean Region to join the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines (Global Platform).