On 19 August 2016, the Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development (GICR) launched the Latin American training Hub in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This Training hub will serve Spanish- and Portuguese- speaking countries in Central and South America where there are 23 high-quality PBCRs, covering 7.7% of the population (580 million inhabitants).
The Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development (GICR) is a global initiative led by IARC with the support of UICC, the US CDC, PAHO as well as the US NCI, all ICCP partners. GICR aims to provide technical support and advocacy to improve the ability of low and middle income countries to plan and evaluate cancer programmes through the development of high-quality population-based cancer registries (PBCR). GICR provides useful resources to getting started on population based cancer registration, a key deliverable against the WHO global action plan on NCDs and key tool for policy makers. You can access these resources on GICR website (http://gicr.iarc.fr) and on the ICCP landing page on cancer registries (http://www.iccp-portal.org/cancer-registries).
The primary aim of GICR is to create and operationalise regional Hubs or hub networks that provide education, technical and advocacy support to cancer registries in regions of the globe where cancer data is traditionally weak. In addition to the Latin American hub, two Regional Hubs are already active, in Mumbai, India and Izmir, Turkey along with for the African Cancer Registry Network (AFCRN http://afcrn.org) which is acting as a consortium to provide Hub activities for cancer registries in Sub Saharan Africa. Two further networks are in development across the Caribbean and Pacific Island regions.
The launch of this new training hub is the result of a successful collaboration of global partners, including initial funding from UICC and the Dutch Cancer Society, which supported key activities in the region, including 7 GICR workshops, 2 fellowships and travel support to ensure the participation of key stakeholders in regional meetings. The operations of the hub will also benefit from a strong collaboration within the region. In addition to the Coordinating Centre at INC Argentina, the operating model of the Regional Hub involves three collaborating centres located in Brazil (Instituto Nacional de Cȃncer), Colombia (Instituto Nacional de Cancerología), and Uruguay (Registro Poblacional de Cáncer), with each of the centres contributing particular skills in developing the Hub.
Read the IARC Press Release: http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/regional_hub-Argentina-August2016.pdf
Learn more about GICR: http://gicr.iarc.fr
Access the ICCP landing page on Cancer Registries: http://www.iccp-portal.org/cancer-registries