Less than $5 can cover the cost of a cervical cancer screening. Cervical cancer is the #1 cause of cancer death for women in the developing world.

Why we care: More than 270,000 women die each year from a preventable, treatable disease- cervical cancer. Approximately 80% occur in developing countries; less than 1% of these women receive screening.

How we are solving this: Jhpiego is using vinegar and carbon dioxide to champion early and free access to cervical cancer screening and treatment for lifesaving results.

Jhpiego, an international health nonprofit and affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, is using vinegar and a freezing procedure known as cryotherapy to help save the lives of women who die needlessly each year from cervical cancer. More than 95% of women from developing countries who die each year due to this disease had never been screened for it. For these women, traditional Pap tests—the most common way to screen for the disease—are either too expensive or unavailable in remote areas. By the time most of these women learned of their diagnosis, the cancer had already metastasized, spreading beyond the point where treatment was a viable option.

Jhpiego champions the single visit approach (SVA) to ensure that women, no matter where they live, can be screened and treated. In one visit, a woman is screened for cervical cancer using vinegar, and if a precancerous lesion is detected, she is immediately offered treatment through cryotherapy. All of this—screening and treatment—costs less than thirty dollars.

Jhpiego has been using this innovative approach in more than a dozen countries for more than 30 years, saving thousands of women worldwide. Jhpiego is committed to ensuring all women have access to this lifesaving screening approach because when a mother dies, her children are 10 times more likely to die within two years of her death.