WHO: Cancer patients in poor countries are deprived of basic painkillers

GENEVA (Reuters) – Cancer patients in developing countries are deprived of basic painkillers. The reason is often an excessive fear of opioid dependence, said Wednesday the World Health Organization (WHO).

More than half of pharmacies in two-thirds of the industrialized countries have oral morphine, a pain reliever widely used to relieve acute pain, compared to only 6% of pharmacies in poor countries, said Thursday the expert from WHO Chiran Vargis.

The UN agency is issuing new guidelines for health authorities around the world to address the pain felt by 55% of cancer patients on treatment and two-thirds of those with cancer. with advanced or incurable cancer.

"No one should live or die in suffering in the 21st century, whether or not they have cancer," said Etienne Krug, director of the organization's non-communicable diseases department.

"In some parts of the world, these drugs are freely marketed and used for drug addiction," he said, "There is real and justified fear, but it should not be at the expense of those who live or die in the world. pain."

The widespread use of opioid overdoses in the United States, sometimes due to over-prescribing doctors, resulted in more than 49,000 deaths last year, raising fears of dependence in other areas.

The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines impose strict precautionary measures when administering addictive substances such as morphine, but indicate that oral morphine is "a basic treatment for moderate to severe cancer pain ".

In a report published Feb. 4 on the occasion of World Cancer Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that 18.1 million new cancer cases occur each year in the world. world and that this disease is the cause of one in six deaths, or 9.6 million deaths.