Dear HIFA colleagues,
I’m responding to Q2: What questions do people commonly ask about cervical cancer screening and treatment?
In LMICs, talking openly about cervical cancer in the community is still not considered appropriate, as it is for other cancers.
There is hardly any evidence-based scientific information in simple language available through social media (messages, reels, infographics), educational advertisements (as for other cancers), and cervical cancer education materials integrated into the school education curriculum.
The process of ‘cervical cancer screening’ is not widely shared, so women have prior knowledge of the health facilities closest to their homes where they can discuss myths about HPV vaccines, what to expect in the screening examination and the length of time, what the cost is, what the consequences of a positive test will be, and what the treatment and the steps to follow up after treatment will be.
Best wishes
Dr. Meena Nathan Cherian, MBBS, MD (Anaesthesia)
(Former WHO Lead Emergency and Essential Surgical Care Program, Geneva, Switzerland).
Director, Global Health New Challenges: Geneva Foundation for Medical Education & Research, Switzerland. <http://www.gfmer.ch/surgery/cancer.htm> www.gfmer.ch/surgery/cancer.htm (NSA-WHO)
Senior Advisor Global Action International Society of Geriatric Oncology <https://siog.org/about-us/governance/leadership/permanent-committees/> Permanent Committees - SIOG
Senior Advisor, International College of Surgeons-Global Affairs. https://icsglobal.org/ (NSA-WHO)
Adjunct Prof.The Chinese University of Hong Kong,Shenzhen,China. https://med.cuhk.edu.cn/en/teacher/371
WHO-HIFA Essential Health Services; mHEALTH-INNOVATE. www.hifa.org <http://www.hifa.org/> (NSA-WHO).
Geneva, Switzerland. <mailto:+41%20763837253> +41 763837253(m); <mailto:cherianm15@gmail.com> cherianm15@gmail.com
HIFA profile: Dr Meena Nathan Cherian was a professor of anaesthesiology from Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore, India. She trained, worked, and taught in several countries, USA (Johns Hopkins Hospital), Southeast Asia and Africa. She worked at the World Health Organization Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland, as the Emergency and Essential Surgical Care Program Lead where she created the ‘surgical care’ program resulting in the first World Health Assembly Resolution on ‘Emergency and Essential Surgical Care and Anaesthesia in the context of Universal Health Coverage’. Currently she works as the Director, Global Health New Challenges program, Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research, Geneva, Switzerland; Adjunct Prof. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China; Senior Advisor, Global Action, International Society of Geriatric Oncology, Switzerland; Member of the WHO-HIFA Working Group on Essential Health Services and COVID-19; and HIFA mHEALTH-INNOVATE Working Group. She is a member of the HIFA Steering Group. https://www.hifa.org/support/members/meena and Spotlight working group on Patient Safety and NCDs. cherianm15 AT gmail.com