ELEVATE - Early detection of cervical cancer in hard-to-reach populations of women through portable and point-of-care HPV testing

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women, and the hard-to-reach populations in many countries are at a higher risk of developing the disease. Preventive screening programmes and vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) result in reduced cancer incidence and mortality. The EU-funded ELEVATE project is conducting studies to identify hard-to-reach women in Belgium, Brazil, Ecuador and Portugal in order to remove barriers to their early screening and design strategies to make it more accessible. A multidisciplinary team of experts from Europe and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States are carrying out the fundamental and technological research to develop an efficient and marketable test for the detection of high-risk HPV infections in those populations. The goal is to design a portable test compatible with self-sampling, generating rapid and easy-to-understand results. (Grant agreement number: 825747)