Although most cervical cancer cases are preventable if diagnosed early, sub-Saharan Africa along with Latin America and South Asia have the highest mortality rates in the world. A study of HIV-positive women in Zambia by Dr. Jeff Stringer and Dr. Groesbeck Parham, found that 20 percent of women who are HIV-positive also have cervical cancer. Through his Cervical Cancer Screening Program in Zambia, he has screened and treated more than 30,000 women. Every HIV/AIDS clinic in Africa could offer that same simple test for little added expense, and the impact would be momentous, Brinker said.

???In fighting one disease from a platform built for another, we are saving lives,??? Brinker said. ???By thinking of creative new ways to include cancer in what we are already doing, we can confront this crisis immediately.???

She said women??™s cancer screenings fit squarely into the U.N.??™s Millennium Development Goals for maternal health and empowering women.

???How can we fully serve the goal of improving maternal health, unless we target the cancers that kill so many mothers? And how can we credibly speak about empowering women, when breast cancer, cervical cancers, and other illnesses affecting women are all equally neglected,??? she asked.

???The job of screening women, helping patients, spreading knowledge and saving lives does not rest with one nation alone,??? said Brinker. ???We must take this fight everywhere, and especially to places where cancer victims have no defenses, no advocates, and little understanding of what they are up against. If we fail to act, then treatments and cures for cancer will be a luxury only enjoyed by wealthy nations ??“ and that is an injustice we cannot accept.???

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