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News/Event Item
Kenya: Cervical Cancer, Little-Known Killer of HIV-Positive Women
Nov. 3, 2009
Three years after being diagnosed with HIV, Alice Mworia, 28, went for a routine medical check-up during which she told the nurse she had noticed an unusual vaginal discharge; a test revealed she had pre-cancerous lesions on her cervix that could develop into cancer if untreated.
"I was experiencing a bad smell from my private parts and I wondered whether it was because I was HIV-positive; I could not keep quiet any more and I shared with one of the nurses and she referred me to the doctor," Mworia told IRIN/PlusNews. "I did not even know there was anything called cervical cancer, which I was informed can kill very easily."
According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), some 2,635 Kenyan women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year, with 2,111 dying from the disease, making it the most prevalent cancer among women in the country. About 38.8 percent of women in the general population are estimated to harbour cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) infection - a leading cause of cervical cancer - at any given time.
© 2009 IRIN
For full article, visit:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86853
category: News from Other Sources : General Health News
contributed by Liza Nanni on 6 November 2009
Africa :
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