Cairo Call to Action on Breast Cancer

Advancing Equity and Innovation

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women worldwide and in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, with an estimated 2.3 million women diagnosed globally in 2022, resulting in 670,000 deaths. The global burden is marked by stark inequities across development levels, reflecting critical gaps in early detection, timely diagnosis, and treatment access.

In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, the burden is exacerbated by entrenched poverty and economic hardship as well as inadequate health-care infrastructure and workforce capacity. Low levels of awareness and screening uptake, together with cultural and traditional barriers further delay diagnosis and treatment.

Building on a high-level dialogue hosted on 23 January 2025 by the Egyptian Presidential Initiative on Women’s Health – the Cairo Call to Action was articulated as a practical and unifying framework to galvanise partnerships and scale up proven, effective, evidence-based, and innovative interventions, ensuring that no woman is left behind.

Eastern Mediterranean Region Key figures

+ 130,000 new breast cancer cases

52,000 deaths occur annually

The most prevalent cancer among women in the EMR

Over 131,000 reported cases in 2022. 

60 cases per 100,000 women with a mortality rate of 19.3 per 100,000

A lower incidence of 38.6 per 100,000 but a higher mortality rate of 25.7 per 100,000

Incidence rate of 55.4 per 100,000 and a mortality rate of 19.8 per 100,000. 

The Cairo Call to Action calls for :

National governments to renew and accelerate commitments to breast cancer control by strengthening public awareness, early detection, timely diagnosis, and comprehensive treatment; investing in referral systems, multidisciplinary teams, cancer registries, and patient navigation; promoting research, innovation, and flexible regulatory pathways; and implementing patient-centred policies that reduce barriers to care and ensure equitable access across the continuum.

Civil society and partner organizations to combat stigma and misinformation through culturally sensitive education, document and disseminate innovative approaches, establish regional platforms for knowledge exchange and research collaboration, and advocate for funding mechanisms that support underserved populations.

The World Health Organization and United Nations partners to support Member States in designing and implementing breast cancer policies and programmes; establish monitoring and evaluation frameworks aligned with the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative 60–60–80 targets; strengthen supply chains for medicines and technologies; and develop a regional roadmap to implement the Cairo Call to Action through coordinated South–South collaboration.

EMRO Regional Committee side event

On 16 October 2025, a side event titled  Advancing the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative implementation through patient-centred care in the EMR was convened on the sidelines of the 72nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean in Cairo.

The session celebrated the adoption of the Cairo Call to Action by Member States and reinforced it as the regional vehicle to operationalise GBCI Pillars 2 and 3, focusing on earlier detection and diagnosis and comprehensive, patient-centred treatment.

Ministers, WHO leaders, civil society, and partners agreed to align national actions and monitoring with the Cairo Call to Action framework to translate political commitment into measurable implementation. 