National Cancer Center Designated as WHO Collaborating Center for 17 Consecutive Years

National Cancer Center exterior view

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] The National Cancer Center has solidified its position as a specialized institution in cancer management and prevention by being selected as a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for 17 consecutive years.

The National Cancer Center announced on the 16th that it recently passed the WHO Collaborating Center re-designation review. Since its initial designation in 2005, it has achieved the milestone of 17 consecutive years of designation and will continue to operate as one of the WHO Western Pacific Region Collaborating Centers until 2025.

The National Cancer Center has held the 'Chronic Disease Prevention and Management Workshop' (4 times) and 'Cancer Management Leadership and Capacity Building Workshop' (6 times) targeting healthcare professionals and senior officials from low- and middle-income countries in the Western Pacific Region as a WHO Collaborating Center. It has also conducted training on establishing cancer registration projects in countries such as Mongolia, Brunei, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Laos.

In particular, since being designated as the Central Hospice Center in 2017, the National Cancer Center has expanded its role to include hospice palliative care education institutions and has hosted related international workshops, thereby strengthening its position as the only specialized institution in Korea covering all areas of cancer management.

In 2015, it formed the domestic WHO Collaborating Centers Association and served as the initial executive committee, laying the foundation for exchanges among specialized institutions. At the 16th meeting of the association last April, the current activities of each member institution during the COVID-19 era were shared, and ways to activate mutual cooperation were discussed.

Seo Hong-gwan, Director of the National Cancer Center, said, “We have faithfully fulfilled our role as an important partner of the WHO, and the mutual trust formed through this made the recent re-designation possible without difficulty. We will further develop the cooperative relationship through this re-designation.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.