Dear members, this is to let you know that Science cafe will launch the cervical cancer and HPV awareness program on 20th July in Entebbe with the key stakeholders most of whom have confirmed attendance. We shall present the preliminary baseline data we collected to acertain the knowledge gap. On the brief look out, the results are not surprising, knowledge gap is huge. On 24th June in one of the groups we started the discussions with, out of 80 people, nobody knew how cervical cancer is transmitted and prevented and ,men asked me why they should be invloved in the discussions since they have no cervix and this even came from teachers of secondary schools. This could be one of the major reasons why Uganda has the highest prevalence(according to WHO report 2008) in Eastern Africa. I always ask myself, if the knowledge gap is so big in a place like Entebbe which is flooded by media, how about my village where even a radio is a mystery to many and community awareness is rare if not abscent. We have a long way to go
We shall share outcomes of the baseline at an appropriate time when report is finalized. Videos of the discussions will be uploaded to the website for those interested to view. For those who came out vehemently to oppose anything to do with the HPV vaccine, Just be informed that Ministry of Health has got the vaccine for ten districts in Uganda and they will start giving it out soon for young girls and this will slowly be rolled out depending on the availability of the vaccine. So the activitists should now direct their advocacy to the right body, otherwise their advocacy becomes missdirected and wasted. If you noticed of late, cervical cancer has been a hot topic in the news papers, you need to understand why. For Science cafe, the aim is to give people the right information so that they can take informed decisions about the various preventive measures including the vaccine, treatment and any other related issues. Thanks Christine
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