Leaders of DGHI partner organization Family Health Ministries will make recommendations to the Haitian Ministry of Health based on 21 years of pioneering cervical cancer work in Haiti in Port-au-Prince on Monday.
The Ministry is revising its standards for cervical cancer prevention in Haiti, and who better than FHM to look to for insight. FHM’s work largely focuses on cervical cancer research, treatment and prevention. Cervical cancer continues to be a top killer of women in the country, where many women can’t afford to make multiple doctor visits for screening and treatment.
FHM Founder David Walmer, a trained OB/GYN and associate professor at DGHI, will recommend to the Ministry primary and secondary screening techniques for the detection of cervical cancer based on available resources. For communities with access to HPV testing, Walmer advises HPV test samples as a primary screen, which can be collected by either clinicians or patients, followed by a colposcopy or portable colposcopy and a cervical biopsy. In settings with limited resources, Walmer suggests conducting a colposcopy or portable colposcopy test first.
FHM and partners invented and refined an inexpensive, portable, battery-powered colposcope coined the “CerviScope” that can be used in resource-limited settings across low resource countries like Haiti. It is a lightweight, battery-operated, hands-free device that is easy for health care providers to use in remote areas to identify and treat premalignant cervical lesions.
FHM partners with the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies at Duke on this work, as well as with other entities in Haiti like the Centre of Investigation and Advanced Treatment of Infertility (CHITAI), Fonation pour la Sante Reproductrice et i'Education Familiale (FOSREF) and QIAGEN.
