PUBLIC-HEALTH messages need to be translated into theological terms, to encourage religious leaders to take action, a World Health Organization (WHO) gathering on cervical cancer has been told.

The panel on cervical-cancer elimination was held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday of last week. Gracia Violeta Ross, the World Council of Churches programme executive for HIV, reproductive health, and pandemics, observed: “In places where there is no hospital or clinic, you will often find a church or mosque present. Faith leaders have the trust capital we need to disseminate critical health information.”

Religious leaders needed to be reminded that “caring for women is part of the mandate given in the Bible,” she said. “It’s about transforming public-health knowledge into theological terms, which helps dispel stigma and motivate action against gender-based violence, HIV, and cervical cancer.”

The Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative was launched by the WHO director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in 2018; and the global strategy for cervical-cancer elimination was adopted by the World Health Assembly two years later. Cervical cancer is the fourth most common form of cancer among women, causing almost 350,000 deaths in 2022. Almost 94 per cent were in low- and middle-income countries where, WHO reports, “access to public health services is limited and screening and treatment for the disease have not been widely implemented.”

Three strategic targets for 2030 have been set: vaccination of 90 per cent of girls by the age of 15; screening of 70 per cent of women; and treatment of 90 per cent of women with pre-cancer and invasive cancer. A meeting in March in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, sought to accelerate implementation of the strategy.

Addressing last month’s gathering, Ms Ross said: “We must turn our commitments into realities for women and girls. Women living with HIV are six times more likely to develop cervical cancer than women not living with HIV.”

A co-moderator of the event, Benda Kithaka, founder and executive director of the KILELE Health Association and secretariat lead of the African Cervical Health Alliance, spoke of attending a recent gathering at which more than 100 religious leaders had discussed the intersection of faith and science. “People fear what they don’t understand,” she said.