Cervical cancer among HIV-seropositive women in Central/Eastern Europe (C/E Europe) is an important public health problem, necessitating a cadre of appropriately trained medical/public health personnel Not only does the general population of C/E Europe have three-fold higher cervical cancer rates than found in Western Europe, but women with HIV/AIDS have high risk of cervical cancer. However, in C/E Europe, as in many of the other most affected populations, there is limited current expertise in HPV and cervical neoplasia, especially as it relates to women with HIV/AIDS. The AIDS International Training and Research Program at SUNY Downstate Medical Center (SUNY-DMC) has been providing HIV research training to researchers from the region since 1994. SUNY-DMC has also been collaborating on HPV studies in HIV infected women with basic scientists and epidemiologists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) since the early 1990s via an NIH funded cohort study. Building on these relationships and existing population based training resources at our affiliated School of Public Health (SUNY-SPH), a training program that builds on the research training infrastructure provided by our AITRP to provide training in clinical/epidemiologic studies of HPV-associated disease in HIV-seropositive women. Our initial effort will be concentrated in Poland, which has the highest incidence and prevalence of HIV in Central Europe. Our ultimate goal is to create and sustain a cadre of appropriately trained researchers to address the problem of cervical cancer among HIV-seropositive (and HIV-seronegative) women in C/E Europe.
HIV rates are rising rapidly in Central and Eastern Europe particularly in women. Human papillomava virus (HPV) is the primary etiology of cervical cancer which is more frequent and aggressive in HIV-infected women. The training supported by this proposal will help identify the burden of HPV in HIV-infected women, and assist in developing critically needed control measures in the region. ? ? ?
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