Cervical Cancer Screening Program​

Malawi has the second highest incidence of cervical cancer in the world. In 2013, Nkhoma Hospital collaborated with the University of Edinburgh, the Scottish government, and the Ministry of Health of Malawi to prevent cervical cancer by detecting and eradicating precancerous lesions. In October 2018 Nkhoma Hospital was named the lead hospital for a 4.5-year project to expand the cervical cancer screen and treat program throughout Malawi. Goals for the new project are to establish 33 additional health centres for screening, and to train 80 new providers and 20 mentors.

The objective is to screen a total of 70,000 women by the end of the project. The cervical screen and treat program would not be possible without the generous long-term support of the Scottish Government International Development Fund. During the period April 2021 to March 2022, despite the COVID pandemic restrictions, MALSCOT has been responsive in its delivery – undertaking rural outreach where women could not or did not access the clinics at Health Centers. Challenges were shared and lessons learned on-line with Scottish partners. During the year, 29,924 women attended the MALSCOT clinics, nearly 80% were for initial VIA screening.

  • 16 new VIA providers were trained (now 72 trained providers of the 5-year target of 90)
  • 43 VIA providers received refresher training.
  • 7 data clerks were trained in the RedCap data collection system
  • Continuous professional development sessions (including on-line) were conducted
  • All screening hubs have made efforts to reach highly vulnerable women
  • A mentoring and support toolkit for cervical screening has been developed and is in use across all MalScot sites. Providing clean water at screening sites continues to be a challenge.