Every year, more than 6,000 Filipino women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, a disease that is usually detected late because the affected women may have no obvious early signs and symptoms, according to health officials.
The Department of Health (DoH) said nearly 100 percent of cervical cancer are caused by HPV or Human Papilloma Virus and the mortality rate of this disease is high if detected late.
In the Philippines, cervical cancer patients are between 35 and 55 years of age, who are often breadwinners in their families and caretakers of the children and the elderly.
To protect the Filipinas from this “catastrophic” disease, the DoH is providing free cervical cancer screening for women aged 25 and 55 years at selected government hospitals nationwide for the whole month of May.
The DoH stressed that women should undergo regular screening to know if there are changes in their cervix due to HPV infection, which may progress into cancer.
The free screening is part the government National Cancer Prevention and Control Program and in line with the observance of the Cervical Cancer Consciousness Month with the “Babae, Mahalaga Ka! Magpa-Screen… NOW Na!”
Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial has urged women to undergo regular screening and get themselves protected through HPV immunization.
At the same time, she announced the expansion of the DoH’s HPV immunization program to more provinces in order to increase the number of beneficiaries (9-year-old Grade IV girls in public schools) of its free quadrivalent HPV vaccine that protects against the four strains of HPV.
