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Point of View: COVID-19 as a catalyst for reimagining cervical cancer prevention

Luckett R 1 , Feldman S 2 , Woo YL 3 , Moscicki AB 4 , Giuliano AR 5 , de Sanjose S 6 Show all authors , Kaufman AM 7 , Leung SOA 8 , Garcia F 9 , Chan K 10 , Bhatla N 11 , Stanley M 12 , Brotherton J 13 , Palefsky J 14 , Garland S 15 , International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS) Policy Committee

Affiliations 

  • 1 Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, United States
  • 2 Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, United States
  • 3 University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 4 University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, United States
  • 5 H Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, United States
  • 6 National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, United States
  • 7 Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • 8 McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Canada
  • 9 Pima County Health Department, Tucson, United States
  • 10 University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
  • 11 All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
  • 12 Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • 13 Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer, Melbourne, Australia
  • 14 University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
  • 15 Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
Elife, 2023 Apr 18;12.
PMID: 37070731 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.86266

Abstract

Cervical cancer has killed millions of women over the past decade. In 2019 the World Health Organization launched the Cervical Cancer Elimination Strategy, which included ambitious targets for vaccination, screening, and treatment. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted progress on the strategy, but lessons learned during the pandemic - especially in vaccination, self-administered testing, and coordinated mobilization on a global scale - may help with efforts to achieve its targets. However, we must also learn from the failure of the COVID-19 response to include adequate representation of global voices. Efforts to eliminate cervical cancer will only succeed if those countries most affected are involved from the very start of planning. In this article we summarize innovations and highlight missed opportunities in the COVID response, and make recommendations to leverage the COVID experience to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer globally.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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