Preventing Cervical Cancer in the COVID-19 Era

While COVID-19 wreaks havoc across countries and their health care systems, women are still dying of cervical cancer. They must not be forgotten. At the same time, while we continue to fight cervical cancer, we know that the impact of COVID-19 cannot be ignored. As an organization with almost 25 years experience in cervical cancer prevention in remote coffee communities, we have an opportunity and an obligation to assist in COVID-19 prevention efforts while continuing to innovate and expand our cervical cancer prevention programs.

To continue our work in the context of COVID-19, we plan to introduce a testing method that could drastically improve our reach and impact at the community level, while taking into account the need for social distancing: HPV self-sampling.

Screening for HPV (the virus that causes cervical cancer) allows us to more accurately identify women who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. Samples will be collected in a woman’s home in minutes and then taken to one of our health centers where they are analyzed. Only women with positive results are asked to come in for treatment, which means that the approximately 85% who test negative will avoid the cost and risk of exposure to COVID-19 by traveling to health centers.

Grounds for Health staff and the local health workers have strong relationships with administrators and leaders within the communities where we work. This project will give us the opportunity to support country-wide efforts at COVID-19 education while we implement our community-based HPV testing program. As role models in the community, we plan to distribute masks as we demonstrate proper use and social distancing behavior. During our years of cervical cancer work, we’ve discovered that low income, rural communities suffer greatly from the negative outcomes that can result from health fallacies, myths and traditions. We will take every opportunity to identify and correct any COVID-19 misinformation and the stigma that it can generate.

At Grounds for Health, we continuously assess our models of service delivery based on cost, efficiency, cultural acceptability and quality of care. As a small and nimble organization, we are able to adjust our programs operationally to ensure that these goals are met. What we learn while we introduce HPV self-sampling to remote regions will be useful to organizations working in the developing world as they begin to develop similar programs. And helping alleviate this global health pandemic while we’re doing our core work is simply the right thing to do.

Our great hope, and the hope of many others, is to ultimately reach all the women in the developing world who deserve being spared from an avoidable disease.