Globally, one woman needlessly dies every 2 minutes from cervical cancer. Even though preventive and treatment measures exist, they are not available at scale in the regions with the highest burden of disease.
One of the key drivers of inequity in cervical cancer screening is the limited access to high performance tests for HPV. HPV screening allows for early detection of the cancer causing strains of the virus, further assessment of HPV positive women to determine whether they have any precancerous lesions and for treatment of those with lesions to prevent further progression to cancer. Making HPV testing widely available and affordable could expand access to more women at lower levels care. HPV testing also offers the option of self-sampling, where a woman collects her own vaginal sample using a swab either at home or in a facility. This has been shown to be more acceptable and preferrable to a pelvic exam by women without compromising quality of sample collected and therefore offers choice to women and flexibility to the design of screening programmes. HPV screening is limited particularly in LMICs in part due to limited awareness, high costs and limited investment.

The main objectives of the event are:
– To examine the state of HPV screening in high burden countries and the barriers to scaling up.
– To understand preferences of women and the role of HPV screening, from the perspective of survivors.
– To act as a call to action for governments, funders, policy makers and advocates to make HPV screening widely available and affordable.

The format of the event will be a scene setting presentation, followed by a panel discussion in an informal fireside chat format with an interactive audience engagement component enabling live interaction with the panel and then an open Q&A.