Intensifying and promoting cervical cancer prevention in low-resource countries
Providing the best available prevention to women most at risk
Challenges
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 is limited. Most cervical cancer is caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Women living with HIV are at higher risk of developing cervical cancer faster when infected with HPV.
Early screening and treatment of precancerous lesions are essential to avert invasive cervical cancer, but high cost, 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.
Solutions
The four-year 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.
Led by Expertise France and in collaboration with Jhpiego and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), SUCCESS is being implemented in Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guatemala and the Philippines.
SUCCESS’s cervical cancer control approach is based on:
-High-performance screening;
-HPV testing and thermal ablation of precancerous lesions;
-Increased awareness and information for communities.
SUCCESS stands for “Scale Up Cervical Cancer Elimination with Secondary prevention Strategy.”
“If we are to reach the 2030 global targets for cervical cancer elimination, we need urgently to expand early adoption of the optimal tools for secondary prevention of cervical cancer. The SUCCESS project is a step toward reducing the mortality and burden of cervical cancer for all women.”
Unitaid Programme Manager Smiljka de Lussigny
The impact so far
All four countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Guatemala and the Philippines) have established screening and treatment through integrated service delivery models.
Cumulatively, 55,970 women have been screened, including 42,000 women with HPV primary screening.
Implementation research is investigating optimal ways to integrate HPV screening into existing health services. SUCCESS is also working closely with civil society organisations to develop national advocacy and community engagement strategies to raise awareness and generate demand for cervical cancer services, in addition to regional engagement targeting 20 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
