At Komplex Health, our mission is to keep people as well as they can be. So this Cervical Cancer Prevention Week (January 23rd to 29th), we wanted to help raise awareness of the global efforts to reduce the number of people being diagnosed.
There are some fantastic resources out there designed specifically to support you if you’d like to know more, you’ve been diagnosed, or you know someone who has.
These include:
Cancer Research UK
Jo’s Trust
Macmillan Cancer Support
NHS
Teenage Cancer Trust
World Health Organization
(We’ve used the above to verify facts and statistics used in this blog)
Preventing cervical cancer
Around 600,000 people receive a cervical cancer diagnosis every year. In the UK, this equates to nine people every day, and sadly two people die from the disease every day.
Four years ago, the World Health Organization called for the elimination of cervical cancer across the globe. NHS England is aiming to reduce cases to zero by 2040 but there are other countries who have much more ambitious targets.
These include Sweden, which is on track to eliminate this type of cancer by 2030, and Australia is aiming to do so shortly after.
So how is this done?
A combination of rolling out HPV vaccinations, increasing attendance at cervical screenings, and providing effective treatment for cell changes are helping to reduce cases.
What can you do?
There are plenty of ways we can all join the campaign to eliminate cervical cancer, such as:
- Seeing a doctor straightaway if you have any symptoms.
- Attending your cervical screening if eligible (Jo’s Trust has some tips if you feel worried about your appointment).
- Encouraging your friends and family to attend their screenings.
- Finding out more about HPV, how it links to cervical cancer, and the current vaccine programme.
- Sharing information from reliable sources with your loved ones and online networks.
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