We May See the End of Cervical Cancer, Much Earlier Than Expected

Effective cervical cancer prevention has been tested and proven in seven countries, and the target of treating 90% of all women with pre-cancerous lesions has been reached a whopping eight years ahead of schedule!

“Unitaid and partners have delivered the models and technologies to make cervical cancer elimination a reality,” states Dr Philippe Duneton, Executive Director of Unitaid. “Now it comes down to access for all women. We must see concerted urgent action from governments and partners to scale up these models and bring an end to cervical cancer for generations to come.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) Cervical Cancer Elimination Strategy was launched in November 2020 in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, Nigeria, Philippines, Rwanda, and Senegal. In two short years, WHO’s target was reached, efficiently demonstrating that the life-saving cervical cancer prevention model could be implemented on a larger scale to prevent around 65 million deaths over the next century. Unitaid, a Swiss global health agency, in partnership with the Clinton Health Access Initiative and the SUCCESS consortium – which stands for Scale Up Cervical Cancer Elimination with Secondary Prevention Strategy – funded the highly effective package of tools and strategies, including high-performance HPV screening and portable devices for treating pre-cancerous lesions into existing health structure, meant to reach its target in 2030. Since the first target was reached in a record time, the second one is already in progress: reaching 70% of women with high-performing screening by age 35 and again by 45, with more than 50% of women have received an HPV test.