It’s 10am on Thursday and midwife Patricie Mukarukundo holds up a swab and explains to the packed benches of women and babies how they will be tested. About 40 women are at Rubona health centre, in Huye district, Rwanda, for their first screening for human papillomavirus (HPV), an infection which can cause cervical cancer. Among them is Olive Uhutesi, 39.
“A woman in my village had cervical cancer and died. If she had been screened, she could have been saved,” she says.
