In collaboration with local government partners in Burundi, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central Africa IeDEA has launched complementary initiatives to address urgent gaps in the availability of reliable cancer data and in integrating cervical cancer screening into HIV care:
- Capacity-building initiative to establish hospital-based cancer registries in Burundi, Cameroon and DRC. Leveraging our infrastructure and research capacity, along with experience gained from previous work to develop a cancer registry in Rwanda, CA-IeDEA has been working with local partners to develop standardized protocols and procedures for the consistent and accurate collection of cancer data. We have also partnered with the IARC Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development (IARC-GICR) to train cancer registrars from Burundi, Cameroon and DRC, ensuring consistency and accuracy in across all operations. Building on these efforts, CA-IeDEA is working with local partners in each country to support supplementary data linkage studies to evaluate the burden of cancer among people living with HIV (PLHIV) which will guide efforts to improve cancer prevention and treatment outcomes among this population.
- Integrating cervical cancer screening into HIV care in DRC. To inform the integration of cervical cancer into HIV services in DRC, CA-IeDEA is working to support the recently-established National Center for the Fight against Cancer (CNLC) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in providing high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) screening for women living with HIV, ages 25-60, using the World Health Organization’s recommended “screen, triage and treat approach.” For those testing positive, follow-up colposcopies are being performed to determine the prevalence of cervical hrHPV infections and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 (CIN2+) or higher. This data will inform CNLC’s future efforts to scale up hrHPV screening in DRC.