“Awareness of commoners about Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer is imperative to reduce the risk of the fatality of the cancer in Pakistan. The screening of papillomavirus is the secondary prophylaxis against cervical cancer. Although the country has no nationwide statistics of cancer patients, in 2022 some 28,000 women died of cervical cancer.”Prof. Dr. Thomas Iftner, Director of University Clinic, Tuebingen (UKT), Germany, expressed these views on Friday while delivering a lecture in the scientific sessions of the three-Day IPVS Satellite Symposium on “Human Papillomavirus and Cervical Cancer,” being held in the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi. Scientists from as many as 14 countries are participating the international symposium, organized by Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research (PCMD). Names of the participating countries included Germany, Belgium, USA, UK, Iran, Sweden, Indonesia, China, Cameron, Greece, Jordan, Nepal, Kazakhstan, and Sudan.
The German expert underlined the importance of launching the massive awareness programs for education of Pakistani people, and said that the uneducated individuals linked cancer to unrelated causes and myths like black magic and fate. Such awareness programs must aim to inform the public about risk factors, prevention, early detection and treatment of cervical cancer. World has millions of people chronically infected with a number of viruses, he said, adding that oncogenic viruses are leading causes of human cancers.
An Indonesian scholar, Dr. Ni Nyoman Tri Puspaningsih, in her lecture, discussed the prevalence of Covid-19. She said, “WHO dashboard of Covid19 in September16th, 2022 reported of 608,328,548 confirmed cases globally, including 6,501,469 deaths.”
The German scholar, Prof. Dr. Christian Betzel lamented that humanity was facing these days an increasing health threat caused by a variety of multidrug resistant bacteria, parasites, and in parallel by already well known and more recent also via emerging viruses, such as coronavirus.
Coronavirus is truly devastating and causing during the last two years extreme high numbers of infections and even death, he added.
