New Brunswick's health minister Michael Murphy announced, on Thursday, that the province is going to fund the experimental treatment of a Cap-Pele boy suffering from cancer.

According to doctors, the only means by which Hugo Robichaud, 3, can survive neuroblastoma is by undergoing surgery and chemotherapy at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Robichaud was diagnosed with this fatal form of cancer when he was 22 months old.

"I received a medical report from the IWK [children's hospital in Halifax] and a medical report from the treating oncologist pediatrician indicating there was a distinct and reasonable possibility of prolonging life of a substantial nature and a distinct and reasonable possibility of cure under those circumstances," Murphy said.

Neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nervous system, accounts for about 10 per cent of all childhood cancers. According to the James Fund, a Canadian organization raising money to fight neuroblastoma, neuroblastoma is the most common type of tumour in babies under one year.