Cervical cancer kills more than 1100 North Korean women per year

More than 1,100 North Korean women are killed by cervical cancer every year, a recent report showed Thursday, possibly due to a lack of vaccination programs in the communist country. North Korea has a population of 10.09 million women aged 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. Current estimates indicate that every year 1,881 North Korean women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 1,119 die from the disease, according to the report posted on the website of HPV (Human Papillomavirus) Information Center. The figures mean that nine out of every 100,000 North Korean women die of cervical cancer per year. In comparison, 4.7 women out of every 100,000 women in East Asia and 7.6 women out of every 100,000 worldwide die of the cancer, according to the report. The report also showed that cervical cancer ranks as the sixth-leading cause of female cancer deaths in North Korea, and is the leading cause of cancer deaths in North Korean women aged 15 to 44 years. North Korea does not have a vaccine program to treat HPV infection, a well-established cause of cervical cancer. The HPV Information Center is being developed by the Spanish Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO). It was originally launched by ICO with the collaboration of the World Health Organization and support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.