In a first for the whole planet, a country is close to eliminating a whole type of cancer within the near future. Cervical cancer in Australia is set to be a "rare disease" by 2020 and by 2028, it will be so uncommon that it'll be deemed "eliminated as a public health problem."
How are they achieving this?
Over the past 2 decades, since the country initiated their pap smear program in 1991, Australia saw cervical cancer rates dropped by roughly 50% (since doctors were able to catch abnormalities before they developed).
Professor Ian Frazer is the co-inventor of the technology behind the HPV vaccine and he said the following:
“Because this human papillomavirus only infects humans and the vaccine program prevents the spread of the virus, eventually we'll get rid of it, like we did with smallpox.”
The free HPV vaccine program started in 2007 in Australia and works to protect the recipient from the HPV types that lead to about 90% of cervical cancers.
This is great news + we can only help that the numbers start to decrease everywhere in the world as well!