Global health donors, including the World Bank Group, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF), have pledged nearly $600 million to combat cervical cancer, marking the first-ever global forum solely dedicated to eradicating the disease.
The World Bank is committing $400 million to the fund over three years, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledges $180 million and UNICEF promised $10 million all of which underscores a significant step towards global cervical cancer eradication.
The three lead donors in a joint statement issued at the Global Cervical Cancer Elimination forum, hosted in Cartagena, Colombia, outlined their commitment to utilizing the funds for the expansion of worldwide access to vaccination, screening, and treatment.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus, maintained that despite possessing the knowledge and tools to eliminate cervical cancer, existing programmes were not yet operating at the necessary scale.
The Global Cervical Cancer Elimination forum serves as a pivotal platform for change, fostering commitments from governments and global health partners to collaboratively address and ultimately end this disease.
The WHO’s endorsement of countries transitioning from a two or three-dose vaccination strategy to a one-dose approach aims to extend protection to more girls.
Available data on the cervical cancer scourge indicates that globally the disease causes a woman’s death approximately every two minutes with 90% of the cases occurring in low and middle-income countries.
Analysts have linked the high rate of the disease in the low and middle-income countries to some challenges, including limited access to preventative vaccines, as well as screening and treatment facilities.
