Today (August 22, 2022) at the Millennium Hilton Bangkok, Dr. Somsak Ankasil, Director-General of the Medical Department, said that the first day of the APEC Health Week meeting in the afternoon Policy discussions on the eradication of HPV and cervical cancer were held. The reason this was brought up to discuss at the APEC Health Week meeting was because cervical cancer is one of the cancer that is common among women around the world Each year, there are about 600,000 new cases and 3.4 lakh deaths.
Of which 38 percent of new cases of cervical cancer were recorded in the APEC economy and 35 percent of the deaths occurred. and support for policy driving to eliminate barriers to protection cervical cancer screening patient care
Both in the curable stage or in the best final stage, including listening to problems and obstacles in the operation and solutions
This will enable economic zone members to implement APEC’s first program to promote sustainable economic progress for women through prevention. and control of cervical cancer (The First APEC Roadmap to Promote Sustainable Economic Advanced for Women through Cervical Cancer Prevention and Control) developed during 2014-2017 and in accordance with the policy of World Health Organization in eliminating disease cervical cancer children by 2030
Dr. Somsak said that Thailand has a national cancer prevention and control plan 2018-2022, which covers cervical cancer from prevention, screening and treatment. It is currently included in the operational plans of all health districts across the country. Which in terms of protection, we contain preventive vaccinations. cervical cancer orHPV vaccine Enter the country’s immunization program and included in the national drug list Both 2-strain and 4-strain vaccines are injected to female grade 5 students across the country, which each year has about 400,000 people injected before having sex. It has been injected since 2017, which studies have shown that it is cost-effective. and has a high and long-lasting disease prevention effectiveness
As for the screening, there is a Pap smear screening guideline, which since the beginning of 2022, the Ministry of Public Health. Organize a cervical cancer screening program by collecting HPV Self Sampling. After collecting the samples, they are inserted into the syringe according to the prescribed procedures and can be sent to the participating hospitals for examination. and report the results of further examination making it unnecessary to go to the hospital
for medical personnel to collect samples which many women are embarrassed about Fear of vaginal insertion or do not want to waste time not going to check Therefore, it is a guideline that causes more screening tests. As for the treatment, the doctor will consider it according to the stage. with both surgical treatment chemotherapy radiation therapy which can be disbursed according to the benefits
“At the meeting, there were discussions about cervical cancer control operations that were stopped during the COVID-19 outbreak. and prepare for continuous operation if this kind of epidemic occurs again. During the past 2 years, coviral-19 has affected production. and provide the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. This makes it impossible to procure and inject more than 8 hundred thousand Thai girls in elementary school grade 5″.
“But this year, we have been able to provide HPV vaccine to inject about 400,000 female grade 5 students and are in the process of procuring for retrospective vaccination for the past two years,” said Dr. Somsak said
Proofreading….Suree Silawong