Glorious’ cervical screening story

Glorious is a health volunteer in Kisengwe, Uganda. She is 39 years old and she is part of the National Village Health Teams (VHT) active in Kisengwe, Uganda. She is known as a “peer-mother” and helps the community by informing and educating them about the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of diseases (EMCT).

In her EMCT work Glorious is focused on the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other transmissible diseases. She helps village people with both testing and referral to local health centres.

She had heard about the cervical cancer training and the opportunity for screening that the Uganda Rural Development Training (URDT) was providing. Taking advantage of the fact that URDT was holding a cervical cancer awareness day in her area, she took the opportunity to learn and to be screened herself at the health centre.

Is cancer transmissible?

The reason Glorious wanted cervical screening herself is that she was experiencing some physical problems which could have been related to cervical cancer. She was especially worried about it because her husband had passed away from liver cancer.

As she had lived in the same house as her husband and used the same bathroom, the same tableware and other personal items, she was concerned that the cancer could be contagious. During the URDT training she learned that it was not possible – cancer is not transmissible in any way.