Cervical cancer is one of the world’s most preventable cancers. And yet, every year, it continues to kill more than 340,000 women around the globe. Its rampage shows no sign of abating. Recent developments in medical science have given us the means of eliminating this cancer, including an HPV vaccine with a record for preventing up to 90 percent of cervical cancer, increasingly effective screening tests for detecting it as pre-cancer, and – should cervical pre-cancer progress to cancer – sophisticated treatment methods for extending and even sparing lives. But the vast majority of lower-income countries and regions within higher-income countries either know little about this cancer or lack the resources or infrastructure to stop it. Without greater awareness and a global willingness to intervene, hundreds of thousands more persons with cervixes will die. It will require a passionate, sustained, collective effort to save them.

Cervical cancer is a disease of inequity. Ethnic minorities – regardless of where they live – are screened less often, diagnosed later, and die more often from this preventable cancer. While most cervical cancer deaths happen in lower-income countries, persons with cervixes are increasingly dying in marginalized communities within higher-income countries. In these parts of the world, preventing and treating cervical cancer is considered a privilege rather than a right – a lofty ideal rather than a budget staple. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated disparities in cervical cancer prevention and care, as fighting this illness took priority over issues like cervical screening and HPV vaccination. The pandemic laid bare the fragile state of women’s reproductive health care: how easily it could be disrupted by global public health emergencies. And yet, until global citizens call attention to worldwide political and financial disparities, it’s clear that geography, skin color, and the most emergent global health priority will continue to foster a wholly unacceptable rate of death by cervical cancer.