Latin America is catching up on HPV vaccination and screening

In 2018, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization threw down an ambitious gauntlet: the elimination of cervical cancer. Nearly seven years later, countries such as Australia, where the HPV vaccine was developed, are on track to eliminate the cancer by 2035—but WHO says 94% of the 350 000 cervical cancer deaths in 2022 occurred in low and middle income countries.1

In Latin America, elimination is a long way off. In fact, cervical cancer deaths in the Americas are projected to increase to over 51 500 in 2030,2 with 89% of these in Latin America and the Caribbean. Carolina Wiesner-Ceballos, director of Colombia’s National Cancer Institute, says the reason for that is inequity of access in a region where the richest 10% of the population earn 12 times more than the poorest 10%. “It’s not easy for women to access a biopsy in remote regions of [Colombia]. For these women, it’s harder to find a trained gynaecologist, with the equipment to perform the treatment,” she says.

Even in more developed regions of Colombia, outcomes differ depending on social classes and educational level, she adds. “Sometimes women can’t be vaccinated because they have …