Washington, 2017 – The headquarters of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington, DC, was the setting for the workshop for the validation of the “Toolkit for improving data for decision-making of the global cancer program cervicouterino”, promoted by PAHO/CDC/WHO in which representatives of the health sector of Central American and Caribbean countries participated.
Cervical Cancer is the second most common cancer among women in Latin America and the Caribbean, although in Central America it ranks first. At the level of the Americas, this type of cancer affects more than 83,000 women each year and claims the lives of some 35,000 annually.
In order to unify a platform of standards to measure the achievements and challenges in the Americas, this new Kit will serve as a guide for the countries of Central America and the Caribbean with the purpose of offering better control of their cervical cancer programs. Two of the manuals that make up the Kit were presented at the workshop for proper feedback:
“Monitoring Cervical Cancer Patients and Programs” offers a package of standards that will be very useful for countries to progressively improve their programs, identify what they are doing well, and what they can improve.
The second manual: 2) “Health center-based surveys for cervical cancer”, is very focused on the infrastructure and equipment that the countries have available to work on access to cervical cancer treatment. This material contains valuable information, because it strongly emphasizes the importance of data for decision-making in cervical cancer control programs that each country must take into account.
Review the past and present to improve the future of care
In the process of developing this new Kit, the local PAHO office in each country requested information and official data from the Ministries of Health or authorized organizations, with a view to identifying patterns of planning, organization, and evaluation of similar programs in the Americas, it was observed where and what are the limitations they have and what standards to have based on international recommendations the WHO has identified based on successful experiences. Once this Kit of manuals was built, PAHO presented the advances to the participants of the workshop that took place in Washington, DC, to provide recommendations according to the realities of each country.
Importance of data for decision making
Ing. José María Rodríguez, one of the Nicaraguan representatives at the meeting organized by PAHO, expressed: “At Movicancer we are convinced of the importance of data for decision making, and we know that you cannot manage what you do not can be measured.” In addition, he added: “in this meeting where we shared with several countries we realized that the work we are doing in Movicancer, hand in hand with MINSA, [is strengthened by this new Kit and vice versa], because the SIVIPCAN (System Surveillance for Cancer Prevention) aims at these objectives: to better control the data for decision-making [and ensure that each affected patient receives the treatment they need]”, concluded Ing. Rodríguez.
This meeting, without a doubt, was the perfect setting for the countries of Central America and the Caribbean to share experiences and have a clearer picture of the challenges posed by cervical cancer control, where to go and what should be done to tackle this disease that continues to take the lives of tens of thousands of women.
