India has taken its most assertive steps yet toward eliminating cervical cancer, combining a just-launched national HPV vaccination drive with a population screening programme that has already reached over 86 million women. Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda announced, while addressing a press briefing at the World Health Organisation headquarters in Geneva on March 5, laying out a strategy that spans prevention, early detection, and treatment.
Screening for cervical cancer using Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid (VIA) is now available at Ayushman Arogya Mandirs and various health facilities across the country for women between 30 and 65 years of age. That rollout, embedded within the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NP-NCD), has cumulatively screened over 86 million women, according to figures cited by Nadda at the WHO briefing.
The centrepiece of India’s latest push is the national HPV vaccination campaign, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 28. The campaign targets 12 million girls aged 14 years and follows a single-dose schedule using the Gardasil Quadrivalent vaccine, in accordance with WHO recommendations and those of India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation. The vaccine is being provided free of cost at designated government health facilities, with implementation planned over 90 days.
Nadda was clear that both scale and equity are central to the initiative. “The health and dignity of women remain a core national priority for India,” he told the WHO gathering, reiterating the government’s commitment to protecting women from a disease that is both preventable and, if caught early, treatable.
The voluntary nature of the vaccination drive has been deliberately emphasised. Nadda stressed that the programme is based on voluntary participation and parental consent, reflecting India’s respect for community values and family autonomy. To ensure operational transparency, vaccination events are recorded on the U-WIN digital immunisation platform while vaccine stocks and cold-chain logistics are tracked through the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system.The broader ambition aligns with the WHO Global Strategy to accelerate cervical cancer elimination. India has reaffirmed its support for the 90-70-90 targets for 2030, which aim for 90% HPV vaccination coverage among girls, 70% screening coverage among women, and treatment for 90% of women diagnosed with cervical disease. Achieving those benchmarks would represent a fundamental shift in the country’s cancer burden, given that cervical cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths among Indian women.
