HPV and Cervical Cancer Prevention for West Africa

GAIA completed a study about linking cervical cancer screening to vaccination of girls in the Fall of 2018. The project was a great success, and we will be writing up the results for publication. But cancer screening doesn't stop when studies stop. Teh clinics need supplies, and support to continue screening women for cancer, which is the number one killer of women in Mali every year.

There are four main results to be drawn from GAIA's campaign:

(1) Linking cervical cancer screening to cervical cancer vaccination reached an additional 10% of girls over and above the number reached by the GAVI pilot campaign.

(2) Education helps motivate women to seek care as the majority of women mentioned having received community outreach as the motivation for attending clinic.

(3) The number of girls who are out of school in Mali may be over-estimated. Many girls who are said ‘not to be in school’ as reported using standard data collection methods are in fact enrolled in private schools. In addition, some mothers of girls attending private schools reported their daughter received school-based vaccination.

(4) Community outreach linking HPV and CC by connecting mothers and daughters; “daughter should be vaccinated, and mothers should be screened” led to an increase in knowledge about HPV from 13% during our first campaign to 64% during this campaign, suggesting that this outreach method was efficient.