Governments should take a health systems approach when initiating and scaling-up comprehensive cervical cancer prevention and control programmes to avoid establishing stand-alone, disease-specific initiatives and to ensure long-term sustainability. When planning prevention programmes, it is important to recognize that: (1) access to treatment of precancerous lesions is a necessary prerequisite for an effective cervical cancer screening programme; (2) screening and pre-cancer treatment should be part of a package of essential health services; (3) delivery of services should ideally be through primary health care services, or as close to the community-level as possible; and (4) there should be universal.
