Stakeholders have called on world leaders to demonstrate strong political will to confront cervical cancer, which is projected to claim the lives of half a million women annually by 2030.
Though some leaders were heeding to the call, there was more to be done to save the lives of women from dying of cervical cancer, which is preventable.
Speaking at the launch of the Global Forum on Cervical Cancer Prevention, ‘Call to Action’, prior to the opening of the Women Deliver Conference on Monday, The Zambian First Lady, Dr Christine Kaseba, said it was unfortunate that policy makers, who formulate laws, lacked information on the subject matter.
She said there was the need for policy makers as well government to know the magnitude of the problem, receive the right information about the disease, and to ensure that preventable measures like vaccination were implemented.
Dr Kaseba called for the admonishment of all negative socio-cultural practices, stigmatization of women suffering from the disease, and to empower women to change their mindset on the disease.
“We also need to work on the existing infrastructure as well as the human resources so we can have skilled attendance and create more awareness of this deadly but preventable disease”, she added.
The call on the leaders was to pave the way for exchange of best practice experiences for effective cervical cancer prevention across the globe.
It is also to ensure that for universal access to cervical cancer prevention to become a reality, broad multi-sector coalitions must be formed at the national levels so that no woman would be left behind in the crusade.
The forum was organized by 30 international partners in collaboration with the Malaysian Ministry of Health.
Dr Marleed Temmerman, Director, Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organisation (WHO), said there was the need to assist young girls access Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, to prevent them from getting infected with the virus.
HPV is a viral infection that affects young females between 9 and 26 years and the vaccine is used to prevent forms of cancers that affect the anal, cervical, vulvar, or vagin.
Dr Temmerman noted that WHO was committed to ensuring a 50 per cent countdown of the 75 focused countries that were introduced to HPV virus.
She said: “This is an ambitious target, but we must do more and WHO is committed to working with partners to take all steps possible to prevent women worldwide from dying of cervical cancer”.
Dr Temmerman expressed concern about the high cost of the vaccine, and said WHO was negotiating with the various leading pharmaceutical companies involved it is production to ensure a reduction in the price of the vaccine.
She commended Malaysia for the major strides it has made its national school based HPV vaccine programme, which has made over 90 per cent coverage.
Dr Seth Berkley, Chief Executive Officer of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), said every year, 275,000 women die of cervical cancer whilst India alone accounted for 72, 000 deaths, Africa accounted for the first top ten highest mortality rates for the disease.
He commended Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa for announcing steps to implement the HPV vaccine with support from GAVI, which together would dramatically reduce the number of cervical cancer deaths across the world.
Dr Berkley said Kenya is the first African country to roll out the cervical cancer vaccine to school children, which took off a couple of weeks ago, whilst Rwanda has also announced its national prgramme scheduled to take off in 2014 with funds from GAVI.
Ms Genevieve Sambhi, a survivor of the disease, and the ambassador for Power over Cervical Cancer, encouraged young girls and women to go for the annual pap smear screening to know their status.
Source: GNA
