With it being HPV Prevention Week, the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer has put together an action plan to eliminate cervical cancer in the country in 20 years.

 

HPV, or human papillomavirus, almost always causes cervical cancer, which is diagnosed in 13 hundred Canadians each year. More than four hundred die.

 

The organization’s Erika Nicholson says the STI is preventable through immunization and treatable if caught early enough, but accessibility can be an issue.

 

Incidence of cervical cancer is higher among the Indigenous population, those living in rural, northern, or remote areas, those with lower incomes, and recent immigrants.

 

Additionally, school-based immunization programs were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

For more information, listen to Thompson Today at 12:40 and 5:10 this afternoon.