World Bank, Gates, UN pledge close to $600m to end cervical cancer

Global health donors pledged nearly $600 million towards eliminating cervical cancer on Tuesday, at the first global forum dedicated to fighting the disease. The World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said in a joint statement that the funding would go towards expanding access to vaccination, screening and treatment worldwide. A woman dies of cervical cancer roughly every two minutes, around 90% of them in low and middle-income countries, the partners said, where access to preventative vaccines as well as screening and treatment can be very limited.