Global Access Program - Cervical Cancer

Conquering Cancer

Please watch this video short of a full-length documentary on the global Conquering Cancer initiative. The video features inspirational stories from cervical cancer survivors and health care professionals who are looking at the 10-year horizon, and challenging country leaders to take action towards the goal of worldwide cervical cancer elimination by 2030.

We celebrate every effort being made to join forces, and come together to help prevent women from dying of cervical cancer, no matter where in the world they live.

Global strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem announced by WHO

WHO's global strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer outlines three key steps: vaccination, screening and treatment. Read the announcement here and download the publication, Global strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem.

Cervical cancer is preventable and elimination is within reach if countries take action now.

Nearly all cases of cervical cancer are caused by high-risk HPV (Human Papillomavirus), a common viral infection transmitted through sexual, skin-to-skin contact. Screening women for high-risk HPV can identify those women who are at risk, before cancer develops, when the disease is easier to treat.

Almost all women will have HPV at some point in their life, and most women’s immune systems will clear the virus without intervention. However, for some women the infection persists and over time can progress into cervical pre-cancer or cancer.

Improving Women's Healthcare in Africa

With the goal of offering innovative diagnostic solutions through its Global Access Program to countries that need it most, Roche is supporting the efforts of healthcare agencies, policymakers and funding institutions to bring rapid, scalable and clinically-validated human papillomavirus (HPV) screening tests for cervical cancer prevention to Kenya and Nigeria.

There is a global call for action to meet proposed cervical cancer prevention goals by 2030.¹

90 %

of girls fully vaccinated against HPV by 15 years of age

70 %

of women are screened with a high-performance test by 35 and 45 years of age

90 %

of women identified with cervical disease receive treatment for precancerous lesions

WHO Global Strategy Formalized

In August 2020, the Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) formalized the decision to adopt the WHO global strategy establishing goals and targets for 2020 to 2030, calling for an acceleration of the elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem.²

The strategy focuses on 3 key pillars with 90-70-90 targets:

prevention through HPV vaccination;
screening and treatment of pre-cancerous lesions;
management of invasive cervical cancer, including access to palliative care.

Countries are expected to reach (and maintain) an incidence below 4 per 100 000 women, gaining reductions in incidence and in mortality. Based on this plan, by 2030, the median cervical cancer incidence rate would fall by 10%, helping avert 70 million cases in the century.

Addressing an unmet global need

Cervical cancer is a preventable disease, but is one of the most common cancers in women.

Cervical cancer is one of the greatest threats to women's health. In 2020, more than 340,000 women died of cervical cancer.³ We can do more to address this problem.

Estimated age-standardized incidence rates (World) in 2020, cervix uteri, females, all ages

Majority of disease burden is in Low & Middle Income Countries (LMIC)

Some of the most vulnerable women in our world are dying unnecessarily. In poorer countries, women are often diagnosed with cervical cancer at a more advanced stage, where the opportunity for a cure is low. This is compounded by a lack of access to life-saving treatment in settings where the burden and need are highest.

Nine out of 10 women who die from cervical cancer live in low- and middle-income countries.⁴

The likelihood that a woman living with HIV will develop invasive cervical cancer is up to six times higher than for a woman who is not living with HIV.⁵

Every country must introduce and scale-up HPV screening for women between 30 and 49 years old, and ensure appropriate treatment and follow-up.⁶

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, 24 September 2018

Elimination of cervical cancer as a global health issue is within reach for all countries. We know what works, and we know how to prevent and control this disease.⁷

Dr Princess Nono Simelela, Assistant Director-General for Family, Women,
Children and Adolescents, WHO

Roche is currently working with the World Health Organization to obtain Prequalification (PQ) Diagnostics Status for our HPV assays on the cobas^® 4800 and cobas^® 6800/8800 Systems for use in resource limited settings. Both of the cobas^® HPV assays have been granted the Abridged Assessment Review Path by the WHO.

HIV, HPV and Cervical Cancer

For women living with HIV, having an HPV infection is an even bigger concern – they are in fact six times more likely to develop invasive cervical cancer.⁵ There is a need to increase HPV vaccination and increase access to cervical screening in low and middle income countries, where the problem of HIV and HPV is most prevalent.

Cervical Cancer Elimination Success Story | Australia

Australia is set to be the first country to eliminate cervical cancer. The country is making great strides thanks to its national HPV vaccination program, and the change to HPV in their national screening program as the first line, primary test. Learn more about the Australian state of Victoria, and what they have done to achieve the world leading cervical cancer mortality rate of only 1.6 in 100,000 women.⁹

Reducing Obstacles to Cervical Cancer Screening

Did you know that many Malaysian women are hesitant to be screened for cervical cancer? The ROSE (Removing Obstacles to Cervical Screening) Foundation is an international collaboration between Australia and Malaysia that has dramatically increased cervical cancer screening rates in Malaysian women, with the aim to reach women in both urban and rural settings.

References

https://www.who.int/health-topics/cervical-cancer#tab=tab_2 (accessed 13 August 2020)
73rd World Health Assembly Decisions, 7 August 2020 https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/73rd-world-health-assembly-decisions (accessed 13 August 2020)
Cancer Today, International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC) GLOBOCAN 2020 Registry: Chart (accessed 29 January 2021)
https://www.unaids.org/en/cervical_cancer "It’s time to make cervical cancer history 04 FEBRUARY 2019" (accessed 13 August 2020)
Stelzle D, Tanaka LF, Lee KK, Khalil AI, Baussano I, Shah ASV, et al. Estimates of the global burden of cervical cancer associated with HIV. Lancet Global Heal. 2020
https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/a-world-free-of-cervical-cancer (accessed 5 February 2021)
https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/cervical-cancer-public-health-concern/en/ Dr. Princess Nono Simelela, Assistant Director-General for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health at WHO (accessed 13 August 2020)
https://www.who.int/immunization/diseases/hpv/en/ (accessed 13 August 2020)
https://www.cancervic.org.au/downloads/cec/cancer-in-vic/Cancer-in-Victoria-statistics-and-trends-2019.pdf (accessed 2 March 2021)