admin Mrs Jeannette Kagame, The First Lady of Rwanda, has commended a new programme that will provide cervical cancer prevention options to women aged between 30-49 years that have not had a chance to get vaccinated against the Human Papilloma Virus, when they were younger.
The new programme which is set to commence in January next year, will complement the existing efforts that have mainly been focusing on getting young girls (mainly 12-year-old) vaccinated against cervical cancer as well as screening services and treatment for older women.
The Director of Cancer Programme at Rwanda Biomedical Centre, Dr François Uwinkindi said, “This kind of treatment is one of the two ways used in cervical cancer prevention.”
He added, “In cervical cancer prevention there are two ways: there is primary prevention which is avoiding contact with the Human Papilloma Virus. Vaccination is one of the things done in primary prevention, as well as avoiding sexual activity especially for young girls who are under 18 years.”
The other preventive way, he said, is treating precancerous lesions.
“This is when you are screened for cervical cancer and you are found with precancerous lesions, and you are given treatment so that it will not develop into invasive cancer,” he explained.
The new project is a two and a half year partnership between the Ministry of Health, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and the International Drug Purchase Facility (UNITAID).
It will use new technologies to improve access to screening of cervical cancer.
It will be rolled out in five districts of the country for the beginning – as a pilot project.
Under the project, medical facilities will receive mobile testing and treatment equipment as well as training for local care providers.
Up to 72,000 women are expected to be screened for cervical cancer across the five districts including Gatsibo, Nyamasheke, Musanze, Huye and Nyarugenge, with plans to scale it up to other parts of the country.
With an incident rate of 31.9 per 100,000 women and a mortality rate of 24.1 for every 100,000 last year, Rwanda is among high burden cervical cancer countries.
In 2018, 1,304 new cases of cervical cancer were registered and 921 deaths were registered.
Speaking at an event, that brought together the Ministry of Health, UNITAID, Clinton Health Access Initiative, among other partners, the First Lady of Rwanda, Mrs Jeannette Kagame, commended the program as she reminded her audience that cervical cancer is preventable and called for more efforts to fight it.
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