Family Health Ministries (FHM) has been aggressively fighting human papillomavirus (HPV) in Haiti since 2000. Since 2007, FHM has screened more than 13,000 Haitian women, aged 25-60 years, for HPV.

October 2013: PLOS ONE published a research article by Dr. David Walmer, M.D., Ph.D., (co-founder of Family Health Ministries) and his associates, Paul S. Eder, Laura, Bell, Hiam Salim, Lori Kobayashi, Jackie Ndirangu, Nicole Tinfo, and Phillip E. Castle, revealing their research findings in genotyping HPV strains in Haitian women. There have previously been no published studies of carcinogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) — the necessary cause of cervical cancer — in Haiti, a nation that has one of the greatest burdens of cervical cancer globally. The objective of their research was to characterize prevalence of carcinogenic HPV and the prevalence of individual carcinogenic HPV genotypes in Haitian women.  The results showed the prevalence of carcinogenic HPV in Haiti was much greater than the prevalence in other Latin American countries and the United States. Also, prevalence of HPV 16 and 18 (the strains most common to invasive cervical cancer cases) among women presenting with CIN II, CIN III and adenocarcinoma was about 60% and increased in prevalence with advanced stages of disease. High carcinogenic HPV prevalence and a lack of cervical cancer screening may explain the high burden of cervical cancer in Haiti.

Click the link below to read the entire PLOS ONE article
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0076110