Only 1% of women screened for cervical cancer in India | Data

Only 1% of women in India are screened for cervical, oral, and breast cancer, far below the recommended 70%.

Only 1% of women are being screened for cervical cancer in India, despite the World Health Organization’s recommendation that at least 70% of women should get tested. The share of women screened remains around the 1% mark for oral and breast cancer too.

Table 1 | The table shows the share of women aged 15-49 who underwent specific screening tests for cancer in 2019-21, across States (in %). 

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The table shows that cancer screening did not cross the 10% mark for any type of cancer in any State.

Also read: Data Point | The gender disparity in healthcare

However, many southern States and select States in the Northeast have shown initiative in testing more women. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, 7% of women said that they were screened for cervical cancer and 3.8% for breast cancer — the highest among the two types across States. Kerala, Mizoram, Manipur and Maharashtra also crossed the 1% mark under these two types. In Andhra Pradesh, 5% of women said that they were screened for oral cancer, the highest for this type of cancer across States. On the other hand, only 0.1% of women were screened for any type of cancer in West Bengal, the lowest in India. Gujarat too performed poorly with 0.2%.

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