Poonam Pandey, the controversial model-actor, may become the face of Narendra Modi government’s cervical cancer awareness campaign, a PTI report said on Wednesday. The report further said that Pandey and her team are already negotiating the details with Mansukh Mandaviya-led Health Ministry.
The development comes days after Poonam Pandey’s ‘death’ became a national headline. On February 2, an Instagram post on her official account had claimed that Pandey passed away due to cervical cancer. In fact, her manager Parul Chawla had also ‘confirmed’ the actor’s demise.
From Bollywood to other celebrities in the media industry, there were flurry of reactions on Pandey’s death. However, a day later on February 3, Pandey took to Instagram to post a video saying that ‘she is alive’ and that this entire exercise was aimed to create awareness around cervical cancer.
There has been a renewed focus on cervical cancer ever since Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about government’s new initiatives in promoting cervical cancer vaccination of girls, who are between the age of 9 and 14 years.
The Union health ministry recently announced its vigilant monitoring of cervical cancer incidence nationwide, maintaining regular communication with states and various health departments. In March, the Rajya Sabha was informed that in June 2022, the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization recommended the inclusion of the HPV vaccine in universal immunization programs. This recommendation entails a one-time catch-up vaccination for 9-14 year-old adolescent girls, followed by routine administration at the age of nine.
Despite comprising approximately 16 percent of the global female population, India witnesses nearly a quarter of all cervical cancer cases and accounts for almost a third of global cervical cancer-related deaths. Officials have disclosed that Indian women face a 1.6 percent lifetime cumulative risk of developing cervical cancer, with a corresponding one percent cumulative risk of mortality due to the disease. Recent estimates suggest that approximately 80,000 women in India are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, resulting in 35,000 fatalities annually.
