MoH to focus on prevention, awareness of cervical cancer

Cervical cancer is the second most common type of the disease in women across Guyana, and the Health Ministry is aiming to change these statistics by spreading awareness on prevention throughout the month of January.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Monday stated that the month of January has been dedicated to improving the landscape to eliminate cervical cancer. The most important aspect to note is that this type of cancer is preventable.
“The reason why we have dedicated January as Cervical Cancer Awareness Month is to really bring focus on cervical cancer. This is the second most prevalent cancer among women in Guyana, the first being breast cancer. But this is a cancer that is preventable. I don’t think a lot of people realise that. If we do the right things, we can prevent and eliminate cervical cancer from Guyana. That is why we want to heighten the awareness,” Dr Anthony noted.
In Guyana, there is a three-tier framework for preventing cervical cancer; namely primary, secondary and tertiary. The primary stage is a simple human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine which prevents the development of the disease.
Presently, the vaccination rate for the first dose stands just over 30 per cent and the second round at about 13 per cent. The Minister noted that the immunisation programme had commenced under the last PPP Administration but was not sustained. As such, a plan is underway to improve these statistics in the coming year.
“There is an HPV vaccine that is very effective and if we can immunise girls between the ages of nine to 14 and we do this across the country, then over time we’ll be able to eliminate the cancer. Once they receive this vaccine, it would prevent them from developing the cancer in later life… One of the things that we will be doing over the next couple of years is really improve the uptake of these vaccines because around the world, they have been shown to be very effective against prevention of cervical cancer.”
Throughout this month, the Ministry is planning on enabling the citizenry to understand the benefits of this primary prevention and why it needs to be done.
The second level prevention surrounds a visual examination of older women as they visit the health unit, since persons who have contracted Sexually Transmitted Infections are at a higher risk of developing cervical cancer. While this initiative is in place, not many women utilise the services.
“Unfortunately, not many women use the opportunity to go and check themselves to ensure that they don’t have cancer. This is another area that we want to ensure that women come forward for this type of screening. We’re able to offer VIA (direct visual inspection) and we’re also able to offer pap smears and if we detected any abnormalities, then we can provide the right treatment at that point in time,” the Minister shared.
The last stage is if these signs are missed and a surgery is required to treat the patient – a procedure which hospitals are equipped to perform. However, Dr Anthony said the Ministry is looking at early detections.
He added, “The focus is to shift now to primary prevention using vaccination. While we are doing that, there will still be people that we’ll have to keep working on.”
The focus is to look at strong programmes to address breast, cervical and prostate cancers – which account for the majority of detections in Guyana.