As Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh encourages women to empower themselves through good health, he is warning that cervical cancer was one of the top four cancers claiming women’s lives in T&T.
Speaking to women at the South-West Regional Health Authority’s (SWRHA) International Women’s Day (IWD) programme at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital yesterday, Deyalsingh said the main issue facing women’s health before 2015 was maternal mortality, with one death per month. He said scary worldwide statistics show black women increasingly dying in childbirth. However, he said not one woman in T&T died during childbirth in 2023, a testament to government policy and implementation.
Breast, uterine, colorectal and cervical cancers are the top four cancer threats to women, he said.
However, Deyalsingh focused on cervical cancer, saying it was more preventable than others because of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Explaining that HPV causes cervical cancer, Deyalsingh said doctors diagnose one woman every three days in T&T, and one dies every five days from cervical cancer.
“That is a statistic we can change by being vaccinated. In the 10 years since the Ministry of Health’s HPV vaccination programme began, 168,633 women and girls from nine years old and above received the vaccine,” Deyalsingh said.
The vaccine prevents cervical cancer in 90 per cent of recipients, which Deyalsingh said should encourage women between the ages of nine to 26 to get vaccinated. He said vaccination can significantly cut down the number of women diagnosed and dying from cervical cancer.
While the public health system offers pap smears to screen for cervical cancer, it indicates if a woman is pre-cancerous.
Deyalsingh said the ministry is also procuring an HPV analyser, a new technology to detect issues before the pre-cancerous stage.
“It will help us categorise women at higher risk so we can surveil you more. We can corral you and give you more information. That is what your Government is doing later this year. It is a more patient-centric, focused way of helping you manage your health.”
SWRHA Manager of Health Promotions, Dr Sandi Arthur, explained that HPV is a family of viruses. Type 16 and 18 are the concerning strains, but low-risk strains like types six and 11 can lead to genital warts. Arthur said as with any vaccine, a person should have it before exposure. The vaccine covers types six, 11, 16 and 18, she said.
“If we have a vaccine on board, you can build a response to whatever it is we think you may potentially be exposed to in the future. We know that your body can give a robust response. When you take a vaccine, your immune system goes into overdrive, recognises something abnormal, identifies it and stores it in memory so that when you are exposed again, those memory cells come out and defend you,” Arthur said.
She said health authorities vaccinate girls at age nine because they want them vaccinated before the risk of exposure.
“We know that most people who become sexually active would, at one point in time in their lives, acquire one or more of those HPV viruses.”
Arthur said most times the body can fight it and a person does not exhibit symptoms, but women can contract the high-risk types that are hard for the body to defend. She said boys should also get the vaccine, as once there is intimate contact between people, there is a risk of contracting an HPV. It can cause vaginal, anal, penile and oral cancers.
In sharing IWD best wishes, San Fernando MP Faris Al- Rawi called on men and boys to step up and be respectful to all women. Al-Rawi also called for chivalry to return to society.