With a strong HPV vaccination programme for girls and a concerted screening and treatment drive for women, the country could be the first in Africa to eliminate the disease
t’s 10am on Thursday and midwife Patricie Mukarukundo holds up a swab and explains to the packed benches of women and babies how they will be tested. About 40 women are at Rubona health centre, in Huye district,, for their first screening for human papillomavirus , an infection which can cause cervical cancer. Among them is Olive Uhutesi, 39.
NCDs are simply that; unlike, say, a virus, you can’t catch them. Instead, they are caused by a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioural factors. The main types are cancers, chronic respiratory illnesses, diabetes and cardiovascular disease – heart attacks and stroke.
'A common condition' is a new Guardian series reporting on NCDs in the developing world: their prevalence, the solutions, the causes and consequences, telling the stories of people living with these illnesses.Community health workers go door to door in villages warning about the dangers of cervical cancer and encouraging women to attend screenings. That’s how Uhutesi heard about it.
“We know that cervical cancer is a preventable cancer, which is also potentially curable should we be able to diagnose it early enough,” says Dr Princess Nothemba Simelela, assistant director-general for family, women, children and adolescents at the WHO. “Women continue to die needlessly from this cancer.”, she adds, because access to public health services is limited and screening and treatment for the disease have not been widely implemented.
Before the vaccine was introduced, teachers told students about the importance of the vaccine, and the threat posed by cervical cancer. Community health workers went from house to house explaining the benefits of the vaccine and dispelling myths, such as links with infertility. Uwinkindi has plans to get the screening programme included under Rwanda’s community health insurance plan, which costs $3 per person for a year.
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