World Bank, Gates, UN pledge close to $600m to end cervical cancer
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[March 06, 2024]
LONDON (Reuters) - Global health donors pledged nearly $600
million towards eliminating cervical cancer on Tuesday, at the first
global forum dedicated to fighting the disease.
The World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.N.
children's agency UNICEF said in a joint statement that the funding
would go towards expanding access to vaccination, screening and
treatment worldwide.
A woman dies of cervical cancer roughly every two minutes, around 90% of
them in low and middle-income countries, the partners said, where access
to preventative vaccines as well as screening and treatment can be very
limited.
That contrasts with many high-income countries that introduced the
vaccine in the 2000s. The shot protects against the human papillomavirus
virus (HPV), the cause of most cervical cancers worldwide.
"We have the knowledge and the tools to make cervical cancer history,"
said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s
Director-General, but the programmes are "still not reaching the scale
required".
The Global Cervical Cancer Elimination forum, held in Cartagena,
Colombia, presented the opportunity to change this, he said, as
governments and global health partners committed to work together on
ending the disease.
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![](../images/030624PIX/health96.jpg)
Bill Gates, Co-Chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is pictured
at an event at a hotel in New Delhi, India, February 28, 2024.
REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Mar/06/images/ads/current/businessdirectory_dailycover_2023.png) The WHO has already endorsed
countries switching from a two or three-dose vaccination strategy to
one-dose, to protect more girls. Countries at the forum like the
Democratic Republic of Congo said they would start introducing the
shot as soon as possible.
The World Bank will commit $400 million over three years, with $180
million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and $10 million
from UNICEF.
(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Editing by Ros Russell)
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