Essentials of Screening and Prevention
In the past two years, our time,
efforts and attention were consumed by the COVID-19 pandemic response. We were preoccupied by observing the minimum
health protocols, triage algorithms, supplies of personal protective equipment…
and other things short of saying that COVID-19 has changed our lives, and we
will never the same again.
However, life must go on and
we must learn to live with COVID-19 in the new normal.
This AOGIN Biennial
Convention entitled STIs and Gynecologic Cancers in FOCUS: Essentials of
Screening and Prevention looks into how we can move forward with screening,
diagnosing and disclosing sexually transmitted infections and cancer amidst the
pandemic.
What to do? We need to find new
ways to facilitate screening and management of sexually transmitted infections
and cancers, maximize the use of available technology like telemedicine which
is also included in the DOH directives for all hospitals to maintain hospital
capacity for healthcare services. We
review the screening and recommendations for STIs opportunities and
pitfalls.
We focus on revisiting
HPV vaccination with long term follow up studies on HPV vaccine trials here and
abroad, real world impact of HPV vaccination and deployment of HPV vaccines
post-pandemic moving forward.
We hope that we can get the message across that although the COVID-19 pandemic may continue to cause fear and anxiety, we need to protect our women from sexually transmitted infections and cancers – mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters may benefit from HPV vaccination and proper screening for STIs and for cancers.
