Australia looks set to become the first country in the world to wipe out cervical cancer, thanks to national vaccination and screening programs which could see the disease effectively eliminated as a public health issue within 20 years.
New research published in The Lancet Public Health forecasts the disease will soon be a rarity in Australia, with fewer than six new cases per 100,000 women by 2022, and fewer than four new cases per 100,000 women by 2035.
In 2007, Australia launched a national publically-funded school immunisation program for the Gardasil vaccine to tackle the human papillomavirus (HPV).
Vaccination rates in Australia are at 79% for girls at age 15 and 73% for boys.
There’s been a 50% reduction in cervical cancer cases in Australia since the introduction of the pap smear in 1991.
“If high-coverage vaccination and screening is maintained … cervical cancer could be considered to be eliminated as a public health problem in Australia within the next 20 years,” the researchers from the Australian Cancer Council wrote in the article. .
“However, screening and vaccination initiatives would need to be maintained thereafter to maintain very low cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates.”
Cervical cancer claims the lives of 250,000 women worldwide each year.
The World Health Organisation says cervical cancer is the fourth most frequent cancer in women, with an estimated 570,000 new cases globally in 2018.
Ian Frazer, the immunologist who co-invented the Gardasil vaccine, said he was delighted Australia is on a fast track to victory over the disease.
“It wasn’t something that I expected would happen quite that quickly,” he told the Guardian.
“It makes me feel very proud that the research community can deliver the goods when it’s asked and can make a real difference in terms of world health.”
He said one of the biggest challenges to eliminating cervical cancer globally was securing funding to roll out a vaccination program across developing countries.
Australia moved to a new five-yearly HPV cervical screening test for women aged 25-74 last year, which replaced a two-yearly pap smear test. The new test looks for the presence of HPV, the virus that causes almost all cervical cancers, and it is expected to cut cases and deaths by at least 20%.
Cancer Council NSW research director Karen Canfell said screening for women and Gardisal vaccinations for boys and girls are vital to eliminating the disease.
“Those who have previously had the pap test should have their next cervical screening test two years after their last pap test, after which point they can move to five-yearly screening,” Canfell said.
While less frequent, the Australian health minister, Greg Hunt, said the new screening test is more accurate as it detects the virus at an earlier stage.
“This is really about protecting young Australian women and women throughout the course of their lives,” Hunt told ABC radio on Wednesday.
The vaccine was too late for Australiansmall-businesswoman Sam Smithson, 45, who was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer four months ago and is undergoing radio and chemotherapy.
But she’s thrilled thousands of other women will avoid the nightmare she and her family are facing.
“It was a dark day [finding out]. I had someone hugging me and I didn’t even know who it was, I was a mess,” she told the Guardian.
Doctors said she might only have a year to live.
“I’ve had a scan since I started my treatment and the tumour has shrunk beyond expectations. It had spread to my lymph nodes and just under my liver and now that can’t be detected anymore,” she said.
The mother of two boys aged five and 10 from Adelaide said it was difficult to tell her kids.
“When my hair started falling out, I gave my boys a pair of scissors each and they cut it all off and I think that helped them not to be so scared,” she said.
