This educational activity was coordinated by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan with support from the Embassy of France to Uzbekistan. Reproductive health specialists from various provinces of the country and the Republic of Karakalpakstan took part in the seminar conducted by four international consultants – leading experts in the area of cervical cancer prevention.

The agenda of this training event included such issues as screening approaches and technologies, treatment of invasive cancer, follow-up strategies, monitoring and evaluation, cervical cancer information needs, cervical cancer control and many other important topics.

The training programme consisted of interactive presentations with discussion of clinical and lab cases of disease. All participants were able to make a comparative analysis of lessons learnt using their rich experience in cancer control programmes and learn best practices from well developed programmes and approaches.

"The importance of this activity is based on the fact that Uzbekistan exhibits one of the highest incidence rates for cervical cancer in Central Asia. During the last five years the incidence ranged from approximately 31,1 to 45,5 per 100 000 women (especially women at the age of 35 to 50). Through supporting this activity, we expect to increase quality of technical skills of health care providers on modern technologies to design, implement and monitor cervical cancer control programmes, improve treatment approaches and enable health managers to implement modern techniques on cervical cancer detection, monitoring of high-risk group of women and improving referral system," commented Feruza Fazilova, UNFPA National Programme Officer on Reproductive Health.

As a tangible impact of all training activities, including technical support in establishing laboratories in remote areas of the country, it is also expected to introduce properly developed cervical cancer prevention programmes nation-wide and decrease the rate of morbidity and mortality among women of fertile age in Uzbekistan.