Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of death in women of reproductive age. Yet it is a cancer that can be prevented and often cured. The World Health Organization (WHO) has chosen to make January this disease prevention awareness month.
On the occasion of this awareness month, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, recalled that “ cervical cancer is highly preventable and treatable And felt that it “might be the first cancer to be eliminated”.
Indeed, it can be largely prevented by vaccination and screening precocious, with appropriate follow-up and treatment.
In France, each year, nearly 3,000 women develop cervical cancer and 1,000 women die from it, according to Public Health France.
Vaccinate young boys too
A few months ago, we interviewed Doctor Océane Sorel (@TheFrenchVirologist), a virologist who collaborates with the United Nations within the Team Halo, on the virus that causes this cancer, papillomavirus (HPV) and vaccination. She recalls in particular that young boys must also be vaccinated, because the papillomavirus can trigger cancer in men and their vaccination would slow down transmission.
In order to eradicate this deadly scourge, a Global Strategy to Accelerate Cervical Cancer Elimination was developed in collaboration with WHO and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (CIRCUS).
WHO has called on “all countries and partners to improve access to HPV vaccination, which can save lives, and develop screening, treatment and palliative care ».
Poor women are the most affected
It’s regarding second most common type of cancer in women, with the highest incidence and mortality rates, as well as a particular impact on countries with a low human development index.
Some 604,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide in 2020, more than half of whom (340,000) died from the disease.
Few diseases reflect global inequalities as much as cervical cancer.
Almost 90% of 2018 deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, where the burden of cervical cancer is greatest, due to limited access to public health services as well as lack of screening and treatment.
Objective: less than 4 cases in 100,000 women
To eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem, the Global Strategy set the threshold for all countries to be one incidence rate less than four cases per 100,000 women.
To achieve this, each state must achieve and maintain three key objectives :
- To reach 90% vaccination rates among girls before the age of 15;
- Track down 70% women using a high-performance test before the age of 35 and once more before the age of 45;
- Provide treatment to 90% women with pre-cancer and adequate care for 90% of women with invasive cancer.
Every country is expected to achieve the 90-70-90 targets by 2030 to get on the road to cervical cancer elimination over the next century.
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This article is an adaptation of the article “Let’s eliminate cervical cancer forever”, urges WHO chief – ONU Info.