Qiagen and the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI) have announced a collaboration to establish the first large-scale cervical-cancer screening programme for women in Kolkata, India.
Qiagen will provide its diagnostic tests for the human papillomavirus (HPV) - the primary cause of cervical cancer.
CNCI will conduct the screening and provide appropriate treatment as needed.
Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
The project will use Qiagen's hybrid capture 2 (hc2) HPV DNA testing technology (also known as the digene HPV test) to screen women for cancer-causing types of HPV to identify those with or at risk of developing cervical cancer.
Participating women will also be screened using visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) as per the Indian national guidelines for cervical screening.
Screening will take place at community-based mobile field clinics in the villages neighbouring Kolkata.
Women found to have cervical cancer or pre-cancer will be immediately treated at the field clinic - a process known as 'screen and treat' - or referred to the CNCI for a follow-up.
The project also includes educational campaigns to raise awareness about HPV, cervical cancer and other health issues affecting women.
The initiative will be conducted over a period of five years and is expected to involve 50,000 women.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, every year, more than 130,000 Indian women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and more than 74,000 die from it.
This makes cervical cancer the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in India and represents approximately a quarter of the world's total cervical cancer cases and mortality.
The WHO forecasts that only about five per cent of women in the developing world have been screened for cervical disease in the last five years, compared to between 40 per cent and 50 per cent in the developed world.
Peer Schatz, chief executive officer of Qiagen, said: 'We will increase awareness about cervical-cancer prevention and make screening more accessible - two vital ingredients in the effort to reduce cervical-cancer rates.
'Also, we are looking forward to demonstrating the combination of cost effectiveness and enormous value for healthcare that Qiagen's state-of-the-art cervical-cancer screening solutions can bring to a setting such as the one in Kolkata.' The Kolkata screening project is a part of 'Qiagen cares', the company's corporate social responsibility programme focused on improving health by providing access to screening methods for infectious diseases in emerging and developing countries.
Dr Jaydip Biswas, director of the CNCI, said: 'We here at the CNCI see first hand how serious a threat cervical cancer is to the health of women locally and to Indian society as a whole.
'We hope this collaboration will help raise awareness of the issue and set an example for other screening projects in the future.' The cervical-cancer screening programme will be officially launched at the opening ceremony of the 2009 Asia-Oceania Research Organization on Genital Infections and Neoplasia (AOGIN) conference in Kolkata on 25-26 April.
The first women are expected to be screened in June.
