Experts have called on governments to accelerate cervical cancer elimination efforts across the Commonwealth, where it is estimated that one woman will die of cervical cancer every three minutes, if no action is taken by 2030.

The call was made at the margins of the Commonwealth Women’s Forum, with the theme: Accelerating Cervical Cancer Elimination, Realities, Challenges and Opportunities, all from the ongoing Common Wealth Head of Government Meeting in Kagali, Rwanda.

Although treatable and preventable, cervical cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in some countries.

The Senior Director of the Economic, Youth and Social Policy Directorate at the Commonwealth Secretariat, Dr Ruth Kattumuri, stressed the urgent need for governments and health professionals to work together towards its elimination.

“Globally, cervical cancer is currently among the most pressing threats to women’s health. Of the four cancers affecting women globally, cervical cancer is the only one that has proven effective elimination strategies through the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and early screening tools for pre-cancerous lesions.”

According to Kattumuri, progress has been slow because many low and middle income countries are experiencing challenges with access to screening tools and HPV vaccines, which calls for collaborative efforts to addressing it.

“Stigma and misconceptions surrounding cervical cancer is high. Hence there is an urgent need to work together to eliminate cervical cancer. And it requires bold strategic policies and actions by governments, health professionals and community organizations, involving women and youth in health advocacy, to improve awareness and address access challenges.”

Delegates recognised the fact that the Commonwealth carries a significant cervical cancer burden, particularly in low and middle income countries (LMICs), despite having only 30 percent of the world’s population, Commonwealth members account for 40 percent of global cervical cancer incidence and 43 percent of cervical cancer mortality.

As part of its mandate, the Commonwealth Secretariat reiterated continues commitment to working with key partners, including experts from the Commonwealth International Task-force for the Elimination of Cervical Cancer, World Health Organization, UICC and the International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research to advance collective elimination efforts based on these recommendations.

The Abiodun Essiet Initiative for Girls, a Non-Governmental Organisation, has urged students to end the culture of silence when faced with any form of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV).

The Executive Director of the organisation, Mrs Abiodun Essiet, gave the advice at a sensitisation seminar, organised for students of government secondary school, gwagwalada in Abuja.

Essiet, who was represented by Josephine Emeghoghena, the Project Officer of the organisation, said the seminar was to motivate the students to speak out against SGBV and break the culture of silence.

She explained that the sensitisation was also aimed at increasing student ambassadors willing to champion the campaign against SGBV in schools, homes and their various communities.

She added that, “we intend to achieve a society where there will be minimal stories of sexual and gender based violence at home, in schools and in our communities.

“We also intend to curb cases of bullying in schools, we want students to take the message home, their classrooms and we want them to be watch dogs for us.

Mr Anze Vincent, the Vice Principal, Administration of the school, appreciated the NGO for bringing the sensitisation to the students.

He urged the students to take the message to their colleagues and friends at home.

He said, “don’t allow anybody to jeopardise your life, nobody should influence you to do what will endanger your life because it will remain a stigma in your life.

“You can also help someone else by reporting whatever you see, do not be afraid to speak out.”

Five Anti-SGBV ambassadors were appointed at the end of the sensitisation. Miss Afodia Allahnana, one of the ambassadors, said the seminar had made her bold to speak out against sexual and gender based violence.  She thanked the NGO for bringing the awareness to students of the school.

The International Committee of the Red Cross began the training of 60 persons drawn from major religious organisations in first aid on Monday in Kaduna.

The Head of ICRC Northwest office, Mr. Said Midadi, disclosed that the decision of the Red Cross to train officials of religious organisations in first aid was prompted by the desire to help improve their capacity to attend to victims of disasters during worship.

“The training would make participants more dependable in the event of emergencies.

“First Aid training beneficiaries can bring immediate relief to victims. Being calm and assessing the situation helps victims to become relaxed while their injuries are being treated,” he said.

“In some situations, victims’ situations could deteriorate rapidly if they did not get First Aid treatment.

“By being able to provide basic care you can stabilise a patient until emergency medical services arrive.

“You will learn how to use basic household items as tools if a first aid kit is not available meaning that you’ll be able to cope with many situations,’’ Midadi added.

He said beneficiaries would be trained on the collection of information and data.

In his remarks, the leader of one of the religious groups, Sabo Babayaro, thanked the organisation for the training and assured of good responses from all participants.

A new study by researchers at the University of Texas, Dallas in the United States has discovered a molecule that can kill a broad spectrum of hard-to-treat cancers, including triple-negative breast cancer.

According to the study, the new molecule, works by a weakness in cells not previously targeted by other drugs.

Dr. Jung-Mo Ahn, a co-corresponding author of the study and a UT Dallas associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, has been passionate about his work designing small molecules that target protein-protein interactions in cells for over a decade.

He previously developed potential therapeutic candidate compounds for the treatment of resistant breast cancer and for prostate cancer, using an approach called structure-based rational drug design.

The current work, Ahn and his colleagues tested a novel compound he synthesised called ERX-41 for its effects against breast cancer cells, both those that contain estrogen receptors (ERs) and those that do not.

While there are effective treatments available for patients with ER-positive breast cancer, there are few treatment options for patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which lacks receptors for estrogen, progesterone and human epidermal growth factor 2. TNBC generally affects women under 40 and has poorer outcomes than other types of breast cancer.

“The ERX-41 compound did not kill healthy cells, but it wiped out tumour cells regardless of whether the cancer cells had estrogen receptors.

“In fact, it killed the triple-negative breast cancer cells better than it killed the ER-positive cells.

“This was puzzling to us at the time. We knew it must be targeting something other than estrogen receptors in the TNBC cells, but we didn’t know what that was,” Ahn said.

To investigate the ERX-41 molecule, Ahn worked with collaborators, including co-corresponding authors Dr. Ganesh Raj, professor of urology and pharmacology at the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center, as well as Dr. Ratna Vadlamudi, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UT Health San Antonio. Dr. Tae-Kyung Lee, a former UTD research scientist in Ahn’s Bio-Organic/Medicinal Chemistry Lab, was involved in synthesising the compound.