DGHI Partner to Expand Access to HPV Screening in Haiti

Duke Global Health Institute partner, Family Health Ministries (FHM), has received a $730,000 grant from Clinton Bush Haiti Fund (CBHF) to expand their cervical cancer care in Haiti, a country with one of the highest cervical cancer rates in the world.

The grant will enable FHM to expand  HPV research to include a state-of-the-art laboratory and five new cervical cancer prevention clinics throughout Haiti.

Through a partnership between FHM and the Duke Global Health Institute, more than 12,000 Haitian women have received HPV screenings since 2002. With the grant, FHM will equip a Haitian laboratory to screen an additional 10,000 women over the next 18 months. FHM will work in collaboration with Haitian partner Fonation pour la Sante Reproductrice et i'Education Familiale (FOSREF) to open the HPV lab and hire 30 Haitian health care professionals to bring screening into five existing clinics.

“This program demonstrates how a sustained translational research partnership can lead to an evolution of clinical practice in a low-resource country that overcomes cultural barriers and improves health care delivery,” said David Walmer, FHM chairman and adjunct associate professor at the Duke Global Health Institute. “By funding Haiti’s first clinical HPV screening program, the CBHF grant promises to save hundreds of lives by providing access to early detection and preventive treatment.”

Since 1993, Walmer has worked with Haitian gynecologist Dr. Jean Claude Fertillien on cervical cancer research, which led to a best practices protocol for cervical cancer screening that uses HPV detection as the primary screen followed by visualization and biopsy of cervical lesions.  The Division of the Haitian Ministry of Health endorsed this protocol in 2011, asking FHM to bring HPV screening to Haiti.

FHM’s research will be presented at “World Cancer Day: Debunking Global Cancer Myths” co-sponsored by DGHI and the Duke Cancer Institute on February 4 at 12pm.