VietNamNet Bridge – Despite a cervical cancer vaccine that has been used in Vietnam since four years ago, every year sees 5,174 women on average contract the disease, with nearly 2,500 dying as a result, a doctor said.

Dr Le Thi Kieu Dung, a lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University, released the figure at the seminar “Updating the information related to safe immunization and HPV vaccines” held in Nha Trang City on Sunday.

Since 2008, a vaccine against two human papilloma virus (HPV) types 16 and 18, responsible for 70% of all cervical cancer cases, has been used in Vietnam, but 2,472 women still die of the disease every year, Dung warned.

"A 2009 survey conducted by the university’s obstetric department of 1,500 women in Ho Chi Minh City between the ages of 18 and 59 showed that 10.84 percent of them contracted HPV,” she said.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cancer of the cervix is the second most common cancer in women worldwide, with about 500,000 new cases and 250,000 deaths each year. Almost 80 percent of cases occur in low-income countries, where cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women.

In Vietnam as a whole, cervical cancer is the second leading cause of all cancer deaths in women. However, it is especially deadly in Southern Vietnam, where, according to statistics from the Health Ministry, the disease is the top killer of cancer patients.

Cervical cancer is caused by HPV, which you can get by having sexual contact with someone who has it.

There are many types of HPV. Not all types of HPV cause cervical cancer. Some of them cause genital warts, but other types may not cause any symptoms, the doctor said.

Early cervical cancer has usually no symptoms. Therefore, patients with cervical cancer do not usually have problems until the cancer is advanced and has spread, with various symptoms including back pain, bone pain or fractures, fatigue, leaking of urine or feces from the vagina, leg pain, loss of appetite, pelvic pain, single swollen leg, and weight loss.

Getting regular Pap smears can help detect precancerous changes, which can be treated before they turn into cervical cancer.

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre