The Department of Community Medicine, Government medical College, Srinagar organised a guest lecture on “India’s preparedness for cervical cancer elimination program” by Dr Showket Hussain, Scientist-e, ICMR-NICPR, DHR, MOHFW, Noida, UP in hybrid mode.
The lecture was attended by faculty and resident doctors from various medical colleges, health services.
Inaugurating the session, principal/ dean, government medical college, Srinagar and chief guest on the occasion while welcoming the guest speaker emphasized the national commitment on cervical cancer screening and elimination while mentioning the “70-30-10” the World Health Organization’s roadmap to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem.
She commended the department of Community medicine in organizing the guest lecture, said a press release.
Dr Showket Hussain, who is also Associate professor, Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, elaborated in detail HPV infection and development of cervical cancer while only 1-3% women have been screened and Cervical cancer screening in India has been largely opportunistic.
He talked about the determinants of cervical cancer screening including both facilitators and barriers in cancer screening and prevention.
He elaborated further on global predictive strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem by WHO with targets for LMICs by 2030. He discussed WHO 7-algorithms for screening and treatment of cervical pre-cancer lesions for cervical cancer prevention.
He signified that Primary HPV-DNA testing is now the backbone of cervical cancer screening globally and stressed that every married woman between 30-65 years shall be screened for cervical cancer. He discussed various testing modalities of cervical cancer screening for which validated test are available.
Screening of cervical cancers along with oral and breast cancers are on priority lists and recently ICMR has invited expression of interest for screening of these cancers in Jammu & Kashmir alongside gastrointestinal cancer. The guest lecture was facilitated by ECHO India and coordinated by Dr S Muhammad Salim Khan, professor and head, community medicine, GMC Srinagar
