Governments urged to increase cancer funding

Governments have been urged to allocate more funds to cervical cancer prevention strategies if they intend to attain the Millennium Development Goals on health.

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-Moon on Monday called on world governments to work with the UN to vastly improve women's and children's health by 2015.

"Our joint action plan demands that all women and children should benefit from the relatively simple, proven health practices and known technologies that save lives," Ban said as he announced a global action plan for women's health in a speech to open the Women Deliver Conference on women's health in Washington on Monday.

Despite being preventable and treatable, the disease continues to kill more than 270,000 women every year, the vast majority of whom live in low-resource settings where there is limited access to screening and treatment technologies.

New cases

It is the leading cancer-related death among women in developing countries with close to 3,000 new cases in Kenya each year, with more than 2,000 dying from the disease.

If left unchecked medical experts warn, the rates could double by 2025 thereby hindering full realisation of UN Millennium Development Goal Five to improve maternal health and achieve universal access to reproductive health.

Cervical cancer and breast cancer are the leading cancer related killers of women in Kenya, and have nearly equal case rates in the country.

“It is a global failure that women in developing countries continue to suffer due to poor access to new and available prevention tools,” said Dr Lynette Denny, Principal Investigator with the Department of Gynaecology and Oncology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

The Declaration for Universal Access to Cervical Cancer Prevention reads: "Today we have the unprecedented opportunity to give women and girls worldwide an equal chance at healthy and productive lives, free from cervical cancer.

"We have made significant progress in the development of cervical cancer prevention tools and there is a growing body of scientific evidence supporting their use."

Women Deliver 2010 is a global conference bringing together leaders from around the world to call for action against maternal death.

In attendance at the Women Deliver conference are global leaders from nearly 140 countries, including advocates, UN agencies, researchers, government officials, ministers of health and finance, and first ladies.