Saving Women's Lives From Cervical Cancer: Promoting a Cost-Effective Cervical Cancer Screening Tool in Rural Albania

Background and context: The WHO has presented that more than 90% of deaths from cervical cancer happened in low and middle-income countries. Albania is one of them. Albania has a national cervical cancer screening program. However, the program is not well-promoted and the service is not always available at the primary public health care level. The situation worsens when it comes to rural areas. In 2016, to bridge the gap and achieve health equity the Albanian Center for Population and Development (ACPD) initiated a series of activities to promote the utilization of visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and cryotherapy for the first time as a pilot study in rural Albania. ACPD sees this as a health priority to strengthen the existing national screening program through advocacy with the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MoHSP). Aim: To enable VIA and cryotherapy provision in rural Albania to expand cervical cancer screening by advocating for its integration into the national cervical cancer scree...