Words: Dr Chris Mirakian When my niece told me she had just been to the remote Amazon jungle and set up a pilot program screening women for cervical cancer, the first thing I said was “when can I do that too?” Twelve months later my family set off with our newfound grasp of the Spanish language, and donations from Pindara and St Hilda’s School families and headed to the Napo region of the Amazon jungle in Peru on one of the most exciting and rewarding trips we’ve had to date. The project came to exist as my niece, Dr Geordan Shannon, is the medical director of DBPeru - a nonprofit agency founded in the USA, which has provided outreach healthcare to remote communities in the Lower Napo region of the Amazon basin for the past 14 years. Unfortunately, Peru has some of the highest incidence and mortality rates of cervical cancer in the world. The Cervical Cancer ‘screen and treat’ Program was established to create a replicable model of co-operation between local government, national government and NGOs to serve isolated women who are suffering from, or at risk of, cervical cancer. The aim is to reduce the number of deaths from cervical cancer through education, screening and treatment. In August we joined 20 other volunteers to implement the second phase of the ‘screen and treat’ model, incorporating the following: 1. Screening for Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) in women between 25 and 70 using self- sampling kits 2. A physical examination for signs of pre-cancerous cervical changes using “visual inspection with acetic acid” (VIA) 3. Treatment, if necessary, using cryotherapy - a technique that will freeze and destroy any pre-cancerous cells on the cervix. This model of program is promoted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC), and has been successfully employed in multiple low-resource settings worldwide. Through this type of program, both screening and treatment can be successfully and safely delivered in remote communities such as those in the Lower Napo River. DBPeru does outreach to 25 remote villages on a rotating basis so that each village is visited once a year. pindaramagazine.com.au Pindara Magazine 53
Pindara Private Hospital Magazine - Issue Nine
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