From the perspective of Europe as a whole, 60,000 women develop cervical cancer and 30,000 die from it every year, while the number of women living with cervical cancer (being treated or otherwise) at any one point in time in Europe is over 175,000. Perhaps the greatest tragedy with cervical cancer is that we see all this disease and death when the majority of cases could be prevented through cerv
ical cancer screening and vaccination against the Human papillomavirus (HPV). It has been clearly established that population-based, organised cervical cancer screening programmes can prevent up to 80% of cases. In addition, we now have two vaccines that are highly effective in preventing infection with two of the most common carcinogenic types of HPV and that could substantially reduce cervical cancer rates if deployed in population-based programmes that provide equitable coverage of the target population. Therefore, the resolution of cervical cancer in Europe is not a matter of further scientific research but rather the implementation of these public health programmes that we know will work and all European countries must be encouraged to implement these programmes as a priority. Every day of delay means that more women will needlessly die; it is that simple. The primary roles of the European Cervical Cancer Association are to i) raise awareness of cervical cancer and the means by which it can be prevented, and ii) to promote the implementation and uptake of population-based, organised prevention programmes equitably across Europe. This website is one of our main communication tools and I would like to welcome you to use it. It is my sincere hope that you will find this to be a useful and informative resource.
