It's Cervical Cancer Prevention Week.

Women aged between 25 and 60 have been urged to go for free smear tests to prevent cervical cancer, as European Cervical Cancer Prevention Week is marked this week.

Each year, about 300 women are newly diagnosed with cervical cancer and more than 90 women die from the disease annually.

Dr Philip Davies, director general of the European Cervical Cancer Association, said Ireland’s CervicalCheck programme was one of the best cervical screening programmes in the world. 

 An electron micrograph of a cervical cancer cell. Each year about 300 women are newly diagnosed with cervical cancer in the Republic and more than 90 women die from the disease annually.

“Cervical cancer is the most preventable form of cancer. However, almost 30,000 European women die from this disease every year because they do not have access to high-quality cervical screening programmes,” he said. 

The CervicalCheck programme has provided more than 1.65 million free smear tests since it was launched in September 2008. Some 99 per cent of cervical cancer cases are caused by persistent infection of certain types of the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted infection. A HPV school vaccination programme was introduced in Ireland in 2010in a bid to tackle the virus.

For more information see www.cervicalcheck.ie.