Few areas of health hold as much potential to advance the Sustainable Development Goals as an investment in women’s health. Yet gender inequalities deprive women of the opportunities and power to access care, and deprioritize conditions that specifically affect women. Women in low- and middle-income countries face even greater challenges, with limited attention and funding dedicated to addressing health concerns that primarily impact people in these countries.
Cervical cancer is one such example. Despite being highly preventable and curable when women have access to prevention, screening and treatment, some 300,000 women die from cervical cancer every year. 90% of the women who die live in low- or middle-income countries where access to preventive treatment is scarce.
In advance of International Women’s Day (8 March), Marisol Touraine, Unitaid’s Executive Board Chair, called for urgent action to ensure women everywhere have access to the life-saving care that can prevent one of the leading causes of cancer in women.
She delivered her remarks at the opening session of the Cervical Cancer Elimination Forum, a global effort to catalyze national and global momentum to end the preventable disease taking place in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, from 5-7 March. Governments, donors, multilateral institutions, and partners announced major new policy, programmatic and financial commitments, including nearly US$600 million in new funding, to eliminate cervical cancer.
Co-organizing partners of the Forum include Unitaid, alongside the Governments of Colombia and Spain, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Global Financing Facility, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), UNICEF, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank and the World Health Organization.
Ms. Touraine’s remarks are reproduced in full below.
Read more about Unitaid’s work in cervical cancer in our issue brief.
Excellencies,
Dear Colleagues,
It is a great honor for me to be with you today. As a courtesy, I will now speak Spanish.
[Translated from Spanish]
Ladies and gentlemen,
Every two minutes, a woman dies of cervical cancer, a disease that we know how to prevent, detect and cure. This reality is shocking.
It is all the more shocking because this disease affects the most disadvantaged women: 90% of women who die from cervical cancer live in low- and middle-income countries, and more than others, it affects women living with HIV.
There is already a vaccine that works with a single injection. We have also proven effective screening and treatment methods. So why aren’t these solutions reaching all those who need them?
No matter how good a treatment may be, its interest is limited if it is not accessible to all. This is why the specific role of Unitaid, the multilateral organization associated with the WHO that I chair, is focused on overcoming the barriers that hinder access to health so that innovations can be brought to everyone, everywhere in the world. Our ambition is to first identify innovative treatments, tests and tools, and then to translate them into concrete solutions for the most vulnerable populations. We are a very pragmatic organization, looking for concrete solutions for people to live and live better. We have worked in the fields of HIV, malaria and tuberculosis with spectacular results. We have brought oxygen where there was none during the COVID-19 pandemic. We developed a climate impact strategy that will allow us to continue saving lives without harming the environment. And of course, maternal and child health is one of our major focuses. The results speak for themselves: 170 million people benefit from our work every year. Since our creation in 2006, we have facilitated access to more than 100 innovative health products.
More specifically, we are the largest funder of innovations to screen and treat cervical precancer in women in low- and middle-income countries. Our work in 14 countries on three continents has developed effective models of secondary prevention and is laying the groundwork for national cervical cancer elimination programs around the world.
We have focused on the need to expand cervical cancer services beyond health facilities and to ensure that tools work in resource-poor settings.
First, we have worked on simple and convenient self-collection methods. The pelvic exam that has traditionally been used to collect a cervical sample can, for reasons ranging from cultural or religious considerations to fear or shame, deter women from testing. Learning from our successful experience in promoting the uptake of HIV self-testing, Unitaid has pioneered self-collection strategies for HPV testing.
Also, Unitaid has contributed to the introduction of simple-to-use, battery-powered, hand-held thermal ablation devices and has achieved price reductions of nearly 50%. Unitaid’s expertise and ability to negotiate prices for medical tools are recognized as unique. In practice, these tools allow treatment to be performed in primary care centers, or even as part of outreach programs, at a quarter of the cost of cryotherapy per woman treated. It is a spectacular program, which makes us proud because women and nurses tell us that it has changed their lives.
At Unitaid, we know that actions in the direction of women cannot be done without their participation. We are willing to work with them, with their communities, because a disease is part of a more global situation. So, to cure well, we need a global social and economic vision.
Just two years after the launch of WHO’s elimination strategy, Unitaid had already implemented models that successfully met WHO’s goal of providing treatment to 90% of women identified with precancerous cervical cells.
Between 2019 and 2023, our programs reached approximately 1.5 million women on three continents, trained tens of thousands of health workers and greatly expanded the number of health centers offering life-saving screening, detection and preventive treatment.
You can now understand how, at Unitaid, we are convinced that the international community has the conditions in place to end the scourge of cervical cancer. For our part, we are committed to supporting countries and the international community in the implementation and deployment of these solutions. We will also continue to seek solutions that are even more appropriate and affordable. But to deliver on the promises of these tools, we need everyone.
The time has come for governments and international organizations to fulfill the promises made for solutions whose effectiveness has already been demonstrated and proven. Today more than ever we need strong political will. First, so that countries can massively deploy our cervical precancer elimination program.
I also want to insist that the elimination of this cancer requires a holistic approach, consisting not only of primary prevention, but also the fundamental role of secondary screening and treatment.
Of course, the HPV vaccine represents a fantastic hope for prevention. But we must also commit to ensuring the widespread availability of effective screening and treatment methods if we are to achieve the elimination of cervical cancer in our lifetimes and extend protection to the millions of women who cannot benefit from the vaccine.
The solutions are already there; let us together honor the promises that are in our hands!
Nearly US$600 million in new funding was committed to advance cervical cancer elimination efforts at the Forum this week.
Read more about Unitaid’s work in cervical cancer in our issue brief.
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