Global Declaration to Eliminate Cervical Cancer

Overview

In 2018, the World Health Organization called for the elimination of cervical cancer, one of the most common cancers among women worldwide. In 2020, the 194 member states of the World Health Assembly passed a resolution calling for cervical cancer elimination, and adopted WHO’s Global Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer as a Public Health Problem.

Progress has been limited, partly because the world faced an unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic, but primarily due to a longstanding inequity in access to life-saving vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV)—the virus that causes the vast majority of cervical cancer cases—and screening and treatment services for cervical cancer and HPV. More than 90% of the 342,000 women who die each year due to cervical cancer live in low- and middle-income countries.