New Delhi, June 10 (IANS). Cervical cancer is a major public health issue in India. Every year about 1,27,000 new cases are reported and about 80,000 women die from this disease. This disease can be detected early by regular screening of women above 30 years of age at an interval of 3–5 years. For this, a test called ‘Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid’ is included in the national programme, but despite this the scope of the test is very less.
The main cause of cervical cancer is persistent infection with human papilloma virus. The World Health Organization has suggested that widespread human papilloma virus testing is the best way to eliminate the disease. If proper human papilloma virus testing is done, screening only twice at ages 35 and 45 may be sufficient.
But the problem is that most human papilloma virus tests are expensive, require advanced technology to perform, and are not easily accessible to remote health centers.
To solve this problem, a new research is developing ‘Point-of-Care HPV Test; Have been developed, which are cheap and easy. With these, examination and treatment, if necessary, can be done in the same day. This technology can be very useful for countries like India.
This study was conducted in collaboration with many leading institutions of India such as EMS Delhi, ICMR-NICPR Noida, ICMR-NIRRCH Mumbai and WHO’s international agency IARC (France). Its objective was to check the quality and usefulness of the Human Papilloma Virus Test made in India.
Till now several human papilloma virus tests have been made in India, but they were not fully tested as per international standards. This study examined four new point-of-care tests, two of which were found to be suitable for use in the national programme.
AIIMS Professor Dr. Neerja Bhatla said that this is the first time that human papilloma virus tests made in India have been evaluated as per WHO standards. He said that such tests should be developed which can be easily done at low cost, even in hospitals with low resources.
ICMR-NICPR Director Dr. Shalini Singh said that human papilloma virus testing at the age of 35 and 45 is a key part of WHO’s strategy, but due to the expensive test, it is difficult to implement it on a large scale. Therefore, cheap and local solutions are very important.
Another researcher, Dr. Showket Hussain, said that this new technology can be easily used in district and block level health centers. In the future, this can be made even easier with technology like self-sampling.
This research can help in meeting India’s cervical cancer elimination target and can also become a good model for other developing countries. The human papilloma virus vaccine will protect the new generation, but regular human papilloma virus testing is very important for women above 30 years of age.
–IANS
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