As the number of cervical cancer (CC) cases in Ghana continues to rise, women have been urged to take screening for HPV infection seriously.
Cervical cancer, the fourth most prevalent disease in women worldwide, is mostly caused by high-risk HPV infections, which are a widespread viral STI.
According to the Ghana Health Service’s (GHS) most recent estimates, 3,072 women in Ghana were diagnosed with the illness in 2022, with 1,815 succumbing to it.
Speaking to the Ghanaian Times yesterday as part of this year’s “CC Awareness Month,” Dr. Efua Commeh, the GHS’s Programme Manager for Non-Communicable Disease (NCD), stated that only 3% of Ghanaian women have ever undergone a CC screening, despite years of advocacy for the disease.
“We are losing over 50 per cent of our women diagnosed of cervical cancer largely due to late reporting. Over 75 per cent of our cases coming in at stages three and four which is very advanced, accounting for our mortality rates,” she revealed.
“For women, once you have ever been sexually active you are at risk of HPV, because high-risk types like what causes cervical cancer can stay between 15 to 20 years before symptoms begin to show so if you screen at least once in every three years, (we recommend from age 21 years above), we can detect any abnormality around the cervix early and treatment can be given early,” Dr Commeh advised.
As part of a national NCD package under the program, the GHS has reached an agreement with the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to make screening easily accessible later this year. The program manager encouraged women to “see screening as an investment into your health.”
“Discussions have long started to ensure that screening is made readily available as part of the preventive NCD package on the NHIS which was introduced last year, on your birth month, the month in which you celebrate your birthday, you walk into any health facility with your card and request for a screening so they are enrolling the diseases gradually; we have started with hypertension and diabetes and soon that of cervical cancer will come on board.”
Dr. Commeh also disclosed that Ghana plans to start HPV vaccinations for girls between the ages of 9 and 14 this year in order to protect them from cervical cancer before they engage in sexual activity.
“Let me emphasise that the vaccines are available in Ghana, but on commercial basis so some pharmacies actually have it that individuals have to buy, but it’s expensive.”
“Because we want to make it routinely available, we are incorporating it into the Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI) and hopefully, this year it should begin. If we are able to vaccinate our girls, then we would have an opportunity to ultimately even eliminate cervical cancer so all the deaths that we are recording are going to be saved because they are not going to come down with the disease at all,” she noted.
The second most common cause of cancer in women in Ghana, after breast cancer, is cervical cancer, which originates in the cells of the cervix, the lower, narrow end of the uterus (womb).
In 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) projected that there will be 350,000 cervical cancer deaths and about 660,000 new cases worldwide.
Cervical cancer symptoms include vaginal bleeding and discharges, pelvic pain, menstrual bleeding, difficulty peeing, weight loss, exhaustion, and appetite loss.
Source: newsthemegh.com