Dr Chris Kpodar, the former United Nations Consultant for Africa and the Middle East, has called for a holistic and relentless national approach to fight cervical cancer in Ghana.

He said cervical cancer was preventable with a multifaceted stakeholder approach, including policy interventions, public education, empowerment of health professionals and targeted actions to encourage women to undertake screening.

Dr Kpodar, a member of the Board of Directors, Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA Consult), a non-governmental organisation, said the organisation was embarking on holistic cervical cancer defense paradigm to help fight the disease.

The CDA Consult Change paradigm campaign hinged on four pillars: free cervical cancer vaccination, scaling up prevention, encouraging screening for early detection, and support for treatment towards the elimination of cervical cancer in Ghana by 2030, he said.

Current estimates indicated that every year, 2,797 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer
and 1,699 die from the disease.

However, data from the World Health Survey shows screening rates in urban and rural areas in Ghana are extremely low (3.2 per cent and 2.2 per cent, respectively).

Dr Kpodar said previous studies indicated that lack of knowledge about the dises cervical cancer among Ghanaians may be a barrier to the screening for the disease.

‘Though cervical cancer is usually preventable, long-term screening and treatment are required for success,’ he said.

‘This is part of the reason why CDA Consult is embarking on an advocacy campaign to help scale up knowledge on cervical cancer, preventive measures, and offer support to those who are already suffering from it.’

Mr Francis Ameyibor, the Tema Regional Manager of the Ghana News Agency and Executive Director, CDA Consult, said

progress had been made in promoting knowledge on cervical cancer, however more needed to be done to upscale it.

‘As we approach the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal threshold for ending cervical cancer, we need t
o upscale our efforts through a holistic national action involving state and non-state actors,” he said.

He said the project would be launched by the end of the first quarter of 2024 to outline the modalities for the Change Paradigm Advocacy campaign for free cervical cancer vaccinations, advocacy, prevention, detection, and treatment towards the elimination of the disease in Ghana.

The CDA Consult is an organisation seeking to combine proactive advocacy skills and strong communication networks to congregate health professionals, human rights advocates, gender activists, religious adherents, and communication practitioners to embark on a new paradigm of advocacy.

Source: Ghana News Agency