The Key Focus of the Commonwealth Youth Taskforce on Cervical Cancer and HPV

Increase awareness of HPV and its related cancers

Youth involvement:
Young people across the Commonwealth need to become more involved in programs targeted at HPV awareness, vaccination, and screening at the national, regional and global levels.
Youth engagement:
Young people should actively participate in the planning processes for cervical cancer elimination for a sense of ownership.
Gender-neutral HPV programming:
Vaccinating both boys and girls is a cost effective, long term preventive intervention that can ultimately lead to a faster prevention of cancers, cancer precursors and genital warts.
Private sector commitments:
The workplace and the marketplace are important spaces of influence. Corporations with programs and projects focused on women empowerment can leverage those platforms for cervical cancer awareness and elimination campaigns as part of their agenda to improve the quality of lives of their employees and their families.
Better communication for health service providers:
A lot of the scientific discussions on the topic of HPV elimination stays with the specialists, especially obstetricians and gynaecologists. There is a need to expand the awareness to equip more doctors and healthcare professionals, particularly family physicians and primary healthcare service providers as they have more opportunities to educate and reach out to the right target audience for HPV prevention.

Advocate for early detection and prevention approaches to HPV and cervical cancer

Ensure young people and their innovative strategies are involved in the policy-making process

Endorse a gender-neutral stance to HPV vaccination and awareness

About Us

The Alliance
for Active Action Against HPV (A4HPV)

In 2020, a group of young leaders organised themselves from across the Commonwealth, to create the Alliance for Active Action Against HPV (A4HPV). It was to encourage, empower and harness the efforts of youths in the fight against HPV and cervical cancer in line with the WHO goal of eliminating cervical cancer by 2030.

The young founders of A4HPV strives to empower and involve young people in their global efforts for HPV and cervical cancer elimination. Originally focused on increasing vaccination and screening efforts in Singapore, A4HPV has developed into the Commonwealth Youth Taskforce for Cervical Cancer & HPV and works in tandem with the Secretariat’s Commonwealth International Taskforce for the Elimination of Cervical Cancer.

A4HPV aims to reduce the annual occurrence of cervical cancer to less than 4 per 100,000 women across the Commonwealth. As a youth-led initiative, A4HPV continues to welcome health leaders and youths looking to make a difference in the global health movement and through a satellite model, encourages members to consider developing chapters in their own countries.