In a con­cert­ed ef­fort to ad­dress the sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic health chal­lenges posed by the Hu­man Pa­pil­lo­mavirus (HPV), the Sorop­ti­mist In­ter­na­tion­al Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SITT) launched its Cer­vi­cal Can­cer Pre­ven­tion Cam­paign un­der the theme “Let’s Be HPV He­roes. End Cer­vi­cal Can­cer. Get Vac­ci­nat­ed.” This ini­tia­tive co­in­cid­ed with Cer­vi­cal Can­cer Aware­ness Month and the glob­al Cer­vi­cal Can­cer Pre­ven­tion Week.

Cer­vi­cal can­cer re­mains the third most com­mon can­cer among women in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean, de­spite be­ing one of the most pre­ventable.

The HPV vac­cine, proven safe and ef­fec­tive, can pre­vent more than 90 per cent of HPV-re­lat­ed can­cers when ad­min­is­tered at the rec­om­mend­ed ages.

SI T&T aims to con­tribute to the WHO’s in­ter­na­tion­al goal of elim­i­nat­ing cer­vi­cal can­cer by in­creas­ing vac­ci­na­tion rates. Coun­tries with high HPV vac­ci­na­tion rates, such as Aus­tralia and the UK, have seen dra­mat­ic re­duc­tions in HPV in­fec­tions and cer­vi­cal and re­lat­ed can­cer rates.

T&T, where vac­ci­na­tion rates cur­rent­ly stand at ap­prox­i­mate­ly on­ly 12 per cent, needs sig­nif­i­cant progress.

This on­go­ing cam­paign seeks to in­crease aware­ness about the HPV vac­cine, a crit­i­cal tool in pre­vent­ing cer­vi­cal and oth­er HPV-re­lat­ed can­cers, and to pro­mote vac­ci­na­tion among girls and boys aged 9 to 26 years.

As part of the cam­paign, there were in­ter­views on all the ma­jor ra­dio and tele­vi­sion sta­tions, with ar­ti­cles and in­ter­views in the three main news­pa­pers.

The Sorop­ti­mists ap­pre­ci­ate their sup­port and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vo­cate for a pos­i­tive change of at­ti­tude in the com­mu­ni­ty.

In ad­di­tion to tra­di­tion­al me­dia, so­cial me­dia is be­ing ex­ten­sive­ly used. Posts are reg­u­lar­ly dis­played on the Face­book pages of the sev­en clubs, and on the Sorop­ti­mist In­ter­na­tion­al of T&T page, which is man­aged by the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion, their um­brel­la or­gan­i­sa­tion. Posts are al­so be­ing dis­played on clubs’ In­sta­gram ac­counts.

An en­gag­ing chil­dren’s graph­ic com­ic book ti­tled HPV He­roes: De­fend­ers of the Fu­ture was de­signed and print­ed by the Sorop­ti­mists. It tar­gets young peo­ple, ad­dress­ing com­mon ques­tions re­gard­ing the vac­cine’s safe­ty, ef­fec­tive­ness, and ben­e­fits while de­bunk­ing per­sis­tent myths. It was launched at NALIS, and dis­trib­uted to their branch­es. Copies are be­ing sent to doc­tors’ of­fices and school li­braries. It is al­so avail­able as a flip­book on clubs’ Face­book pages.

Mov­ing for­ward, Sorop­ti­mists are speak­ing to school PTAs, help­ing par­ents to un­der­stand the ben­e­fits of hav­ing their chil­dren re­ceive the vac­cine, which is free of charge in health cen­tres. Clubs would be hap­py to re­ceive in­vi­ta­tions to ad­dress par­ents.

Com­ple­ment­ing this HPV vac­ci­na­tion ini­tia­tive, Sorop­ti­mist In­ter­na­tion­al Es­per­ance con­duct­ed two com­mu­ni­ty-based can­cer screen­ing and aware­ness events.

In Oc­to­ber last year, a Cer­vi­cal and Breast Can­cer Aware­ness and Screen­ing af­ter­noon was host­ed at St John’s Open Bible Church in St John’s Vil­lage as part of the Club’s Women’s Well­ness ini­tia­tive.

The event fea­tured a pre­sen­ta­tion by Es­per­ance Sorop­ti­mist Dr Shali­ni Gopeesingh, a fam­i­ly med­ical prac­ti­tion­er, who un­der­scored the im­por­tance of a healthy lifestyle and reg­u­lar screen­ing in the pre­ven­tion and ear­ly de­tec­tion of both cer­vi­cal and breast can­cers.

In part­ner­ship with the Can­cer So­ci­ety of T&T, on-site breast ex­am­i­na­tions and cer­vi­cal Pap smears were pro­vid­ed to 30 women, spon­sored by the club. Par­tic­i­pants com­ment­ed on the clar­i­ty and prac­ti­cal­i­ty of the in­for­ma­tion pre­sent­ed.

From its in­cep­tion, SI Es­per­ance has cre­at­ed aware­ness of is­sues re­lat­ed to breast can­cer every Oc­to­ber through so­cial and print me­dia.

Fur­ther re­in­forc­ing these ef­forts, mem­bers at­tend­ed a screen­ing ses­sion at Pink Hi­bis­cus Breast Health Spe­cial­ists in Wood­brook.

The ses­sion pro­vid­ed rec­om­mend­ed di­ag­nos­tic prac­tices such as breast ul­tra­sounds for women un­der 40, and com­bined mam­mo­gram and ul­tra­sound ex­am­i­na­tions for those 40 and over. It un­der­scored the im­por­tance of month­ly self-ex­am­i­na­tions in de­tect­ing ear­ly changes in breast tis­sue. A breast can­cer sur­vivor’s per­son­al ac­count dur­ing the event pro­vid­ed ad­di­tion­al em­pha­sis on the ben­e­fits of ear­ly de­tec­tion and in­ter­ven­tion.

Col­lec­tive­ly, these ini­tia­tives rep­re­sent a co­or­di­nat­ed, mul­ti-faceted ap­proach to can­cer pre­ven­tion in women across T&T. Through ed­u­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, and the pro­mo­tion of ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion strate­gies, Sorop­ti­mist clubs are ac­tive­ly work­ing to re­duce the in­ci­dence of cer­vi­cal and breast can­cers and im­prove long-term health out­comes for the na­tion. 

Sorop­ti­mists in T&T in­vite every­one to join the move­ment and be­come HPV He­roes. Whether by en­sur­ing our chil­dren are vac­ci­nat­ed, en­cour­ag­ing fam­i­ly and friends to be screened or shar­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als, we can all play a part in the fight to end cer­vi­cal and breast can­cer in T&T.