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The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium started a new program in May to test for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in their own lab.
Alaska Public Media’s Rachel Cassandra reports.
HPV, when untreated, causes 95% of cervical cancers, but, if caught early, health officials say infections can be easily treated in most cases.
Dr. James Tiesinga is medical director for the lab.
He says HPV testing in Alaska used to require sending samples out of state.
He says in-state testing will be especially meaningful for Alaskans living in remote areas.
“If we can get these results back to the provider in their communities before the woman returns to her village, all the better, because then we can schedule the appropriate follow up, maybe in some circumstances, even perform the requisite follow up before the woman has returned back to her village.”
Rates of cervical cancer have gone down over the past few decades but screening rates in Alaska are lower than the national average.
Alaska Native and American Indian women have the highest rate of cancer from HPV and are twice as likely to die from it.
This type of HPV test is relatively new and Tiesinga says the most promising part of the new program is that women will eventually be able to collect their own samples.
Self-collecting for the test was just approved by the Food And Drug Administration (FDA) in mid-May.
Tiesinga says he hopes people can self-collect in the state within the next six months. And that could reduce cervical cancer rates.
“I believe we’re going to see those high rates of cervical cancer and deaths from cervical cancer start to drop as women now in even the most remote areas are able to self-collect and send those samples in as often as they need to.”
Tiesinga says the lab is now accepting samples from all tribal partners in Alaska.
They can process samples in 24-48 hours.
Tiesinga says the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has one of the first labs in the country to offer this type of HPV test in-house.
VA at Vinita Health Center Grand Opening. May 29, 2024
The Cherokee Nation and U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Eastern Oklahoma VA Health Care System officially opened a VA clinic this week, in Vinita, Okla.
The 1,300 sq ft of leased space with a VA Primary Care Team, inside the tribe’s Vinita Health Center, serves both Native and non-Native veterans in the region.
The tribe and VA celebrated the opening Wednesday.
The clinic served its first veterans Tuesday and is now open.
Every May, the Forest Service hosts an outdoor field camp for students from elementary schools on the Wind River Reservation.
Wyoming Public Radio’s Hannah Habermann brings this report from the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
More than 100 5th graders run around and play games in an open grassy clearing. They’re surrounded by pine trees and the rushing Buffalo Fork River – and they’re here for the annual Blackrock Field Camp.
The two-day event started in 2016 – and today, the students are getting a chance to learn at stations put together by elders from both the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes.
A group of students open with the Northern Arapaho Flag song to honor their vets. Then, another group says the Pledge of Allegiance – in Shoshone. Northern Arapaho elder William C’Hair says this kind of classroom – outside and intergenerational – is a welcome change.
“To this day, the State Departments throughout our country has yet to recognize our different values, our different ways of thinking, our different ways of learning.”
The students spent the day making art by the river, building teepees and listening to teachings from tribal elders.
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