Breast and cervical cancer must be drastically reduced

A press conference dedicated to the first meeting of the Steering Committee of the Black Sea Countries Coalition on Breast and Cervical Cancers Prevention was held at the Courtyard Marriott hotel on March 16. It was attended by First Lady of Georgia Sandra Roelofs, Vice Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Rusudan Kervalishvili, ECCA General Manager Philip Davies and UNFPA Country Director in Turkey and Representative in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan Hedi Jemiai.

The coalition was established during the Black Sea Countries Conference held in Batumi in 2009. It unites politicians, healthcare managers and clinicians from the Black Sea basin countries and South Caucasus.

Yesterday’s roundtable, organised by the First Lady of Georgia and the Chair of the Georgian National Reproductive Health Council (RHNC) brought together representatives of insurance companies and Government officials. The event was also organised by the UNFPA Georgia country office and is supported by the European Cervical Cancer Association.

At the press conference a petition was signed calling on the European Parliament, EU Commission and the Government to work together to implement effective cervical cancer prevention programmes for quality assurance in cervical cancer screening to facilitate the exchange of best practice between the countries of Europe and ensure the drastic reduction of cervical cancer prevalence.

EECA has 100 member organisations from 34 countries, including cancer care societies, cancer treatment centres, medical associations, university hospitals, and more than 40,000 individual members.