HONG KONG, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- The government of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) announced Tuesday a three-year pilot scheme to provide free or subsidized cervical cancer screening for eligible low-income women.
The scheme, drawn up by the HKSAR government's Department of Health and to be implemented by the HKSAR government-led Community Care Fund starting Wednesday, will subsidize about 66,000 women to undergo cervical cancer screening tests at 10 service centers of three local female health service providers.
Regina Ching, head of the Surveillance and Epidemiology Branch of the department's Center for Health Protection, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the scheme will encourage low-income women to receive free or subsidized cervical cancer screening and provide them with health education on prevention, so as to reduce the risk of developing cervical cancer among low-income women.
"In 2015 cervical cancer was the seventh most common form of cancer among women in Hong Kong. There were 500 new cases of cervical cancer, accounting for 3.3 percent of all new cancer cases in females," Ching said. "In 2016 cervical cancer was the ninth leading cause of female cancer death, with 151 deaths recorded and accounting for 2.6 percent of all cancer deaths in females," she added.
