Out of the 40 per cent of total deaths from cervical cancer–the fourth most common cancer among women–India accounts for 23 per cent of them, followed by China (17 per cent), as per a recent Lancet study that is based on The Global Cancer Observatory (GLOBOCAN) 2020 estimates. There were about 6,04,127 new cases of the disease discovered in 2020 and 3,41,831 of deaths that occurred globally. Out of these, India was recorded 21 per cent of the total cases.
The study found that more than 58 per cent of all cases were discovered in Asia, followed by 20 per cent in Africa, 10 per cent in Europe ad 10 per cent in Latin America. More than half the deaths were estimated in Asia (58 per cent) and 23 per cent of these occurred in India. The study also stated that the age-standardized incidence of cervical cancer in 2020 was higher than the threshold set by World Health Organization's Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative in 173 of 185 countries. The steep decrease in incidence was observed in some countries like India, Thailand, Brazil, and Poland, and can be attributed to multiple factors including a decline in fertility rates and lower equality, which are declining across successive generations of women, or an upgrade in screening programs and access to treatment services especially for the urban population.
Last month, WHO announced that India is soon going to get the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem. It is to be noted that experts believe that cervical cancer if caught in the early stages, is manageable and that screening should be done regularly after the age of 35 to detect it.