The problem

Cervical cancer kills a woman every two minutes. Nine out of ten women who die from the disease live in low- and middle-income countries where access to information about prevention and access to services is limited. Nearly all cases of cervical cancer are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), a very common sexually transmitted infection. HPV – a typically slow-moving infection – develops more rapidly in women living with HIV and puts them at six times greater risk of developing cancer when left untreated.

Early screening and treatment of precancerous lesions are essential to avert invasive cervical cancer, but high costs, slow integration into national guidelines and new national programs, along with lack of robust evidence for effective management of HPV, especially among women living with HIV, hinder the scale-up of preventive solutions.

Our response

The Scale Up Cervical Cancer Elimination with Secondary prevention Strategy (SUCCESS) project is introducing and promoting the best available screen-and-treat tools to prevent cancer in women most at risk, especially those living with HIV. Working in four countries – Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guatemala and the Philippines – the project has established screening and treatment through integrated service delivery models.

Working in partnership with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), through a complementary Unitaid grant, our cervical cancer programs are advancing innovative and adapted tools suitable to provide cervical cancer prevention in low- and middle-income countries. These programs have proven a model of care that has cumulatively reached nearly 1.5 million women with screening and is demonstrating effective ways to integrate care in existing health services.