2024-2025: Our efforts in Liberia have been focused on expanding HPV screening which we first introduced in 2014.
A generous donation from the Molot-Ruttenberg Foundation allowed us to screen 300 women using 300 XpertHPV cartridges donated by Cepheid Inc. The generous donation from the Molot-Ruttenberg Foundation was used to pay for use of the screening facility Hope for Women in Paynsville and for staff compensation, as well as to provide screening of an additional 250 women in the general Monrovia region. We extend or deepest gratitude to both these organizations for their support.
We provided logistic and financial support to a local Liberian Foundation, Global Health Innovation and Action (GHIA) Foundation under the leadership of Dr Angela Benson. 300 women were screened using GeneXpert assays. Medical student Sofia Askis traveled to Liberia with Dr Beddoe and played an important role in getting the screening program off the ground. Sofia is currently a medical student at Rutgers Medical chool in New Jersey.
Additionally Last year we focused our efforts on providing cervical cancer screening for women living with HIV (WLWH) who attend the Infectious Disease Clinic (IDC) at JFK Hospital run by Dr Vey. WLWH have an increased risk of developing cervical cancer. Compared to HIV negative women, WLWH are six-times more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer. Screening of these women is important for maintaining to identifying pre-cancerous cells that can be treated, halting progression to cervical cancer.
Implementation of this program would not have been possible without the hard work by Dr Vey, Dr Saywon and Olivia Paul (lab technician). We extend our deepest gratitude to them for making this screening possible, and to Dr Tamba CMO -JFK Hospital for allowing us to process our specimens at the JFK lab.
In keeping with cervical cancer awareness month, we are funding a project headed by Dr Saywon to screen women in two of the largest markets in Monrovia. Announcements for participation are ongoing in local TV stations and screening will be conducted later this week into February.
This year we also replenished reagents to revive HPV screening using careHPV, a rapid and cost-effective molecular test that detects high-risk HPV, the causative agent for the most common type of cervical cancer. We purchased this unit in 2022, but its use declined over the past few years because of difficulty in obtaining reagents. By reviving this screening method, we hope that all patients attending the gynecology clinics at JFK Hospital can be offered an alternative HPV screening method that is more affordable.
Our first scholarship recipient Dr Saywon attended his formal graduation from the Uganda Cancer Institute this year. We are so proud of his accomplishments.