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The Gardasil vaccine is seen in this
undated handout photo released June 8, 2006. The first vaccine to prevent
cervical cancer won U.S. approval on Thursday when health officials
cleared the Merck & Co. Inc. shot to block a sexually transmitted
infection that causes the deadly disease. The vaccine blocks infection
with certain types of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes genital
warts and most cervical cancer and public health experts called the
Gardasil vaccine a major advance against a disease that kills about
300,000 women worldwide annually.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
Photo Gallery>>> |
BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- In the coming three
years, some 200,000 Chinese women will be able to get free screening for
cervical cancer, the program organizers announced here Friday.
The "Prevention of Cervical Cancer" (PCC) program,
approved by China's health ministry, will invest 200 million yuan (28.3 million
U.S. dollars) in cash and equipment into promoting standard treatments of
cervical diseases and setting up screening and treatment centers in the country.
If it goes ahead this will be the second stage of the
program, and women from remote western regions will especially benefit from the
project, according to the co-organizers, the Peking Union Medical College
Hospital, the TCT Medical Company and the China Women Development Foundation.
Lang Jinghe, a professor with the Peking Union
Medical College Hospital, said since the program's initiation in 2005, over 80
demonstration centers had been set up in China's 23 provinces, and980,000 women
had been screened for free.
According to official statistics, over 100,000 new
cervical cancer cases are recorded in China every year, accounting for one fifth
of the world's total.
Shen Keng, another professor from the hospital, said
although evidence showed that 90 percent of cervical cancer cases could be
effectively prevented by getting a screening every two years, less than 5
percent of those cases were in China.
"An immature prevention mechanism is partly to blame
for the high incidence of the disease," he said.
