Fighting cancer with vinegar !

All are aware that in poor countries most women die due to cervical cancer. Though it is easily treatable if diagnosed early, but rarely it happens, as Pap smear test is expensive in these countries. So, a very simple & inexpensive procedure is carried out with vinegar. 


Nurses using the new procedure developed by experts at the John Hopkins medical school in the 1990s & endorsed last year by the WHO, brush vinegar on a woman's cervix. It makes pre-cancerous spots turn white. They can then be immediately frozen off with a metal probe cooled by a tank of carbon-dioxide, easily available from any soft drink bottling plant.

With a Pap smear, a doctor takes a scraping from the cervix, which is then sent to a laboratory to be scanned by a pathologist. Many poor countries lack high quality labs & the results can take weeks to arrive  ( but also in some developed countries too this result takes weeks).

The procedure, known as VIA/ cryo for visualization of the cervix with acetic acid ( vinegar) & treatment with cryotherapy, can be done by a nurse. Only one visit is needed to detect & kill an incipient cancer.
More than 20 countries have done pilot projects & in some countries it has become a routine procedure to screen women between 30-44 at least once.