Friday, October 05, 2012

Blog 6: Botswana Doctors Stop Cervial Cancer with a Vinegar Swab


Doreen Ramogola-Masire a gynecologist has been using the method in which she uses a vinegar swab to check for cervical cancer. It has been highly effective in underdeveloped countries and it is cheap enough for it to be easily accessible for those who are poorer than most. 80% of cervical cancer deaths occur in these low-income areas. Being able to do this can get fast results and the women can be treated within the same day. This method will save many lives since in these areas HIV is very common and it increases the chance of the women of developing cervical cancer.  Doreen hopes that this development will prevent so many horrible from occurring in these regions.

Cervical cancer is a very common killer of women all over the world. The United States has the ability and technology to check for the signs early and get the correct treatment so that it lowers the death rate. However, in the underdeveloped countries cervical cancer is much harder to diagnose and the women often suffer painful deaths due to it being too late to remove the cancer. This new find of the vinegar swab test will improve the rate in which women in other countries are able to be diagnosed with the cancer early and lower the death rate. The fact that this method is so easy and cheap makes it even more accessible to the patients and it will be able to be used even in the most remote locations. There is only minimal training for these midwives in order to know how to do the procedure, but once one person knows how to do this then it can only improve from there.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/18/161264247/botswana-doctors-stop-cervical-cancer-with-a-vinegar-swab

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