Low-cost vaccine to help millions of rural women

 Nurses conduct cervical cancer screening for a patient in Soroti, Uganda. Millions of women in rural Tanzania will benefit from a low cost HPV vaccine for cervical cancer.

In Summary

• To date, cervical cancer ranks as the most prevalent cancer among women in Tanzania.
• It is estimated that 6,241 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer and 4,355 died from the disease in 2010.
  
  
  
  Dar es Salaam. Millions of women living in rural Tanzania will revive hope of controlling cervical cancer after the country was picked to form a group of first eight countries that will benefit from the low cost Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine that protect them against the disease.
  Gavi, a public-private partnership focusing on saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries has agreed to supply the HPV vaccine for the lowest price of $4.5 (about Sh7,200) per dose.
  Gavi will begin support for HPV vaccines in Kenya as early as this month followed by Ghana, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.
  It is estimated that 6,241 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer and 4,355 died from the disease in 2010.
  To date, cervical cancer ranks as the most prevalent cancer among women in Tanzania.
  The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports that 40.7 per cent out of 100,000 women have cervical cancer in Tanzania, while the rate is 25.7 per cent and 16 per cent in the rest of East Africa and the world, respectively.
  Experts say that the problem is compounded by the HIV/Aids epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.
  Studies indicate that being HIV positive can increase the risk of cervical cancer by as much as 50 per cent. Also, HIV positive women may develop cervical cancer 10 years earlier than HIV-negative women.
  Of the 275,000 women in the world who die of cervical cancer every year, more than 85 per cent are in low-income countries, where the incidence of HPV infection is higher and few women have access to screening and treatment.
  “A vast health gap currently exists between girls in rich and poor countries. With Gavi’s programmes, we can begin to bridge that gap so that all girls can be protected against cervical cancer no matter where they are born,” said Dr Seth Berkley, the Gavi Alliance chief executive officer.
  “By 2020, we hope to reach more than 30 million girls in more than 40 countries. This is a transformational moment for the health of women and girls across the world. We thank the manufacturers for working with us to help make this happen,” he said.
  The announcement was made possible through Gavi’s innovative public-private partnership model, which was launched at the World Economic Forum in 2000 to meet the challenges of getting vaccines out to some of the least developed countries.