The fourth Biennial Conference of the Asia Oceania research organization of Genital Infections and Neoplasia, AOGIN 2010, will be held in New Delhi from March 26 to 28, 2010. The theme of this conference is "Agenda 2010: Towards eradication of cervical cancer". Dr Neerja Bhatla, additional professor, Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, AIIMS will be the Organising Chairperson of the conference.

Dr Y K Gupta, professor & head, department of pharmacology & chief spokesperson, AIIMS said that the AOGIN 2010 Conference brings together a large number of experts and delegates from the Asia Oceania region and the rest of the world, to deliberate upon the recent developments in the field of HPV and cervical cancer prevention and how best these can be applicable to India and other parts of the region.

The conference is significant as cervical cancer is the commonest cancer among women in India, with 132000 new cases and 74000 deaths every year. This is a real tragedy as it is a preventable cancer that strikes women in the prime of their lives, and can be checked by regular screening by simple methods like Pap smear that detect precancerous stages of this disease. Recent new developments include better tests like the HPV test, testing for the HPV virus that causes this cancer as well as visual inspection tests VIA and VILI that are applicable for low resource countries. Screening tests are targeted at women over 30 years of age and most tests need to be repeated every three years.

The recent development of the HPV vaccine has added a new dimension of primary prevention. Vaccination of young girls before sexual debut is likely to prevent nearly four-fifths of cervical cancer by blocking infection with the most common HPV types 16 and 18 and some related types. Data available for nearly eight years now show this to be a safe and effective vaccine.

Minister of State for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan will inaugurate the conference on March 26 at 6 pm at Durbar Hall, Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi. Jayanthi Natarajan, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) will be the guest of honour of the function which will be presided over by professor R C Deka, director, AIIMS.