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Over the next two decades, Australia should become the first country to make cervical cancer a rare case of the past.
According to a study published in the Lancet Public Health Journal, cancer should be diagnosed in fewer than 4 women per 100,000 every year by 2028. By 2066, the number of cancer cases is expected to increase by 1. to 2066. 100,000 women.
Today, about seven out of every 100,000 Australians suffer from the disease.
But in 2034, according to the study, Australia will have registered on average less than one cervical cancer death per 100,000 women.
For context, it is estimated that cervical cancer was diagnosed in 7.5 women in the United States in 2014, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
The American Cancer Society predicts that 4,170 women in the United States will die from cervical cancer this year, and 13,240 more will be diagnosed. It is most commonly found in women aged 35 to 44 and remains a threat as they age.
So, how does Australia show how the world could ward off deadly cancer?
The study's authors attributed it to the country's screening programs and its national HPV vaccine.
As Newsweek reported, Australia has halved the rate of cervical cancer after announcing a national screening program in 1991 to help detect cancer at an early stage. The country also offered girls aged 12 to 13 a publicly-funded HPV vaccine in 2007 and the same offer to boys in 2013.
Approximately 99.7% of cervical cancers are caused by infection with the human papillomavirus, which the vaccine can move away.
Ian Frazer, an immunologist who co-invented the Gardasil "HPV" vaccine, said he never imagined that his creation would have such a profound impact so soon, according to The Guardian.
"It was not something I hoped to happen so quickly," he told the Guardian. "It makes me very proud that the research community can deliver the goods on demand and make a real difference in the world's health."
But for Sam Smithson, a 45-year-old Australian woman and mother of two, the study comes up as doctors warn her that it may only be a year to her to live at home. because of his diagnosis of cervical cancer, according to The Guardian.
She said it was hard for her two children after the "dark day" when she heard the bad news.
"When my hair started falling, I gave my boys a pair of scissors and they cut everything off," she told The Guardian. "I think it helped them not to be so scared."
Dr. Richard Edmonson, professor of gynecologic oncology at the University of Manchester, is concerned about the findings of the study, according to Newsweek. He was not involved in the study.
Cervical cancer is expected to reach historic lows, but it will not be totally eliminated, Edmonson said. It is unclear whether the decline in the number of cases of the disease will "disappear quickly" and stubbornly remain at a higher level.
"This study estimates when the incidence will fall below two predetermined levels," he told Newsweek. "What's important is not the same thing as being really eliminated."
Despite the concerns raised by the study, Mr. Frazer has always said that his vaccine would be useful sometime later.
"Because this human papillomavirus infects only humans and the vaccination program prevents the spread of the virus," he told The Age, "we will eventually get rid of it, just as we do. We did with smallpox ".
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