18 Jan 2022

Women can help prevent cancer deaths by going for early screening and leading healthy lifestyles.

Programme Officer at Morama Clinic in Ghanzi, Mr Kealeboga Ramoatlhodi said in interview that with January being cervical cancer month, women must continuously get screened for cervical cancer, which remained one of the leading causes of female cancer mortality in Botswana.

He observed that most women tended to go for screening when they had some infection, or experienced changes in menstrual cycle or pains associated with sexual activity, which might be too late.

“Otherwise, most do not bother, unfortunately, they turn up for pap smear when it is contraindicated as in cases of vaginal infection,” he said.
 

Mr Ramoatlhodi therefore urged women to go for cancer screening as that could significantly reduce the impact of cervical cancer, adding that pre-cancerous cells in the cervix did not usually cause symptoms until cancer had spread.

He said pap smear screening and prevention were critical to eradicating cervical cancer.

Pap smear, he said should be done once in three or five years, depending on an individual’s HIV status.

Mr Ramoatlhodi stated that abnormal results required repeat screening after a year, and generally, for surveillance purposes, if the results were negative for that year, a repeat screening would become necessary after three years for those with HIV, and five years for those who are HIV negative.

He explained that the rational behind the testing was that cancer-causing Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) took between 5-10 years to effect changes that lead to cancer in the cervical lining.

Mr Ramoatlhodi said other screening options beside pap smear, such as VIA, and HPV testing, which accords women an opportunity to screen and get results instantly, were also available.

He indicated that turnaround time for pap smear results was at most six weeks, owing to the fact all pap smears slide processing from public health facilities was done at the National Health Laboratory in Gaborone only.

“However, with the advent of technology such as Integrated Patient Management System, access to the results can be earlier than the six weeks,” he added.

He further said as a way of to encouraging women to screen, the family planning policy recommended a cervical screening for everyone initiated on any hormonal based form of contraception.

Furthermore, the HIV Care policy recommended that all women living with HIV should be screened for cervical cancer. Mr Ramoatlhodi, encouraged parents of adolescent girls to sign school forms authorising health officials to vaccinate the children for HPV to prevent cervical cancer.

The vaccination was an annual activity facilitated by respective DHMTs to ensure that both school going and out of school girls qualifying for HPV vaccines, received their doses as required. Such vaccination had to be done before the age of 15, to reduce chances of acquiring HPV.

Mr Ramoatlhodi however stated that Botswana was currently below the 90 percent vaccination coverage target due to a number of factors, such as COVID-19, which caused disruption, “primarily due to restriction of people movements and gatherings”.

He further said the outbreak of COVID-19 caused a great shift in focus and resources, adding that screening service providers became part of the frontline workers, currently combating the pandemic.

Mr Ramoatlhodi said besides encouraging early detection and treatment of cervical cancer government was running a number of prevention programmes.

These included campaigns in support of safe sex practices and limiting the number of sexual partners.

There was also the “See and Treat” or VIA, Safe Male Circumcision that helped to reduce transmission of HPV, free distribution of male condoms to promote safe sex and therefore prevention of transmission of HPV as well as numerous health promotion and education messages, he said. Ends