By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK, Dec 5 (Reuters) - A new global fund is needed to fight cancer which kills more people than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined and threatens to reach epidemic proportions in the next decade, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.

"We must have a global alliance and a global fund to fight this disease," Massoud Samiei of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Reuters.

"This is such a dreadful disease and such a complicated issue you can't just fight it with a few million dollars," he said on the sidelines of a cancer conference in Bangkok organized by the U.N. nuclear watchdog which has also led efforts to combat the disease based on its expertise in radiotherapy.

Cancer killed 7.6 million people worldwide in 2005 and the meeting of experts from the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions in Bangkok is part of a campaign by the IAEA to raise awareness and funds to fight the disease.

Cancer, the world's second biggest killer after heart disease, is expected to cause up to 10 million deaths by 2015, according to the World Health Organization.

Most new cancer cases are now in low to middle-income countries in Asia and Africa where 70 percent of cases are diagnosed too late to be cured due to a lack of resources.

The number of new cancer cases in Southeast Asia is expected to jump 60 percent to 2.1 million by 2020, and by more than 50 percent to nearly 5 million cases in the Western Pacific.

But there is almost no screening for breast and cervical cancer in women even though both could be treated successfully if detected early, Samiei said.

Radiotherapy, which is used effectively on more than 50 percent of cancer patients in high-income countries, is unavailable to millions in Asia and Africa, where the IAEA plans another cancer conference in Cape Town next week.

It estimates that the Asia-Pacific region needs 4,000 radiotherapy machines to treat its patients, but has only 1,200.

BILLIONS NEEDED

With its expertise in radiotherapy, the agency launched its Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT) in 2004 and is using its share of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize award to fund training and awareness programmes.

But Samiei said several billion dollars are needed to build cancer treatment facilities, train staff and buy equipment in the developing world.

"Cancer kills more people globally that AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, but there is not enough attention because it's seen as a disease of the rich, the aged. A disease of Europeans and Americans, but not here," he said.

"Our aim is that in the next 5-10 years we could establish a global fund to control cancer," he said in a reference to the U.N.-backed Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The fund, a partnership between governments, the private sector and civil society, has committed $6.8 billion to fight the three diseases in 136 countries.

The IAEA's PACT programme has received $2.5 million in donations, but Samiei hopes more donors will climb on board as countries develop their own cancer control plans.

Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Yemen, Tanzania, Albania and Nicaragua are taking part in a model programme that the agency hopes will show other countries how to assess their cancer threat and draw up a strategy to fight the disease.

"We want to bring attention to decision makers in low income countries that they have to plan for cancer otherwise they will face a huge epidemic," Samiei said.

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