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00:14Cervical cancer is considered to be a preventable disease.
00:16However, in the Caribbean, it is still the fourth most common cause of death among women.
00:22Almost all cervical cancer cases are linked to infection with high-risk human papillomavirus,
00:27an extremely common virus transmitted through sexual contact.
00:31According to Dr. Shireen Kalu, most infections with HPV resolve on its own, but sometimes
00:37persisted infections can cause cervical cancer in women.
00:41Pap smells are done from the time a patient becomes sexually active, and it is continued
00:48initially every two to three years until you reach the age of 65.
00:57And if you're doing the HPV testing as well, then you don't need to do a pap smear every
01:02two to three years.
01:04You have five years once the HPV test is negative.
01:07HPV is really the source of the problem that we need to look at, hence the reason we encourage
01:14patients to also do HPV testing.
01:17Dr. Kalu says prevention is better than cure, and encourage women who are sexually active
01:23to get tested.
01:25If you do want to come for your screening, pap smears, et cetera, and you present later
01:30in life, what you present with is abnormal bleeding, bleeding after sex, pelvic pain.
01:38If it's spread and it's gone to the bladder or the bowel, you can actually get problems
01:42with the bowel.
01:43So you can have bleeding with stooling.
01:47You can have urinary tract symptoms and bleeding in the urine, but that's when it's late stage,
01:52as in stage four.
01:54The doctor says there are over 200 types of HPV, and out of those, 14 of them are associated
02:01with cancer.
02:02But there's good news because now there's a vaccine available.
02:06The vaccine is available in the public and private healthcare system.
02:10We do have a vaccine available in the public sector and the private sector.
02:15So it covers not 100% of the ones that cause cervical cancer, but the most important ones.
02:25So type 16 and 18 are the two most common ones, accounting for about 70% of cervical
02:31cancers, and those are included in the vaccine.
02:35The gynecologist said women and men between the ages of 9 to 45 can't get the HPV vaccine.
02:42I am Charlotte Kisto with tonight's Health Watch.
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