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Care, consent, and access: C.W. Wiebe to reduce barriers to cervical cancer testing
On January 22nd, C.W. Wiebe Medical Centre and Pembina Valley Pride are teaming up to host a welcoming event that, according to executive director Karen Denise Cyr, will offer access to “a really important” cancer screening in a relaxed environment. An inclusive Pop-Up Pap Test Clinic A Pop-Up Pap Test Clinic will run from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the south end of the clinic in honour of Cervical Health Awareness Month. “This special event is really intended to raise awareness about the need for us to take care of our health and, in particular, our cervical health,” said Cyr. “C.W. Wiebe has a fantastic team of physicians that are out looking out for the health and welfare of all our community members that need health care and support, and on this special day on January 22nd, ... we're going to have a really fun, low-key, time where people can come and they can get their cervix checked and they can have some popcorn and some ... Bubbly.” googletag.cmd.push(function() { if($(document).width()<900) { s = googletag.defineSlot('/50748803/pvol-all-bigbox', [300, 250], 'div-gpt-1648064209272-bbm1'); s.setTargeting('URL', [window.location.pathname]); s.setTargeting('position', [1648064209272]) s.addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().refresh([s], {changeCorrelator: false}); } }); Who should get a Pap test? Dr. Rachel Noble, also from C.W. Wiebe Clinic, said that anyone with a cervix between the ages of 21 and 69 should consider getting a Pap test, which is a procedure that collects cells from the cervix to check for cancer. While both acknowledge that no one particularly enjoys the process, C.W. Wiebe strives to make it as comfortable as possible, and for Cyr, the peace of mind the test can offer is worth it. “If you take care of that, you can enjoy the rest of life knowing that you've screened yourself for cancer,” she said. “Hopefully, the answer is you don't have it, and you can live a full and productive life. It's quite sad if ... something that can be caught and detected early and treated appropriately is something that would hold people back from being able to live a full life.” googletag.cmd.push(function() { if($(document).width()<900) { s = googletag.defineSlot('/50748803/pvol-all-bigbox', [300, 250], 'div-gpt-1648064209272-bbm2'); s.setTargeting('URL', [window.location.pathname]); s.setTargeting('position', [1648064209272]) s.addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().refresh([s], {changeCorrelator: false}); } }); Addressing barriers to care with an event for everyone Dr. Noble added that, as a care provider, she has seen (especially during the pandemic) how fear can act as a barrier to people accessing healthcare. “We are holding this event in partnership with Pembina Valley Pride to just show that love is more powerful than fear, and we want everyone to come down,” she said. “We know that [experiencing] certain situations or certain patterns of abuse or not being accepted by society or [having] financial issues can also drive people to not seek healthcare attention, and so we just want to do this event in the evening and make it a little bit more time-friendly for people.” Dr. Noble added that those who would like a screening do not need their health card to get a Pap test. googletag.cmd.push(function() { if($(document).width()<900) { s = googletag.defineSlot('/50748803/pvol-all-bigbox', [300, 250], 'div-gpt-1648064209272-bbm3'); s.setTargeting('URL', [window.location.pathname]); s.setTargeting('position', [1648064209272]) s.addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().refresh([s], {changeCorrelator: false}); } }); A ‘very preventable cancer’ The OB-GYN added that about 1 in 50 people in Manitoba are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, but fortunately, she said it’s a “very preventable cancer.” “Almost entirely, the cases are caught when they're just at the pre-cancerous stage or even pre-pre-cancerous stage, and that's the benefit of doing a Pap test is that we can catch any pre-cancer cells and we can treat them and provide care so that it doesn't progress to cervical cancer,” she said. “It's a really powerful tool.” Related stories: New free ‘store’ to provide necessities to Morden residents Winkler welcomes Pembina Valley Hospice House, first of its kind in the region As for the test, she said it consists of a pelvic exam, which will be administered by female providers who will be mindful of consent throughout the process. googletag.cmd.push(function() { if($(document).width()<900) { s = googletag.defineSlot('/50748803/pvol-all-bigbox', [300, 250], 'div-gpt-1648064209272-bbm4'); s.setTargeting('URL', [window.location.pathname]); s.setTargeting('position', [1648064209272]) s.addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().refresh([s], {changeCorrelator: false}); } }); “We are able to visualize the cervix after we do the speculum part,” she said. “We're also seeing some research projects through Cancer Care Manitoba that are examining the possibility of even doing self-screening, which is really exciting, so I think that ... if we encountered someone on Thursday that was really having difficulties, at the very least, we would try to do the self-swabbing.” Support every step of the way Cyr added that while the comfort level of a Pap test varies from person to person, the pop-up event’s atmosphere will be designed to make the process as approachable as possible. “All the things that we're feeling and thinking leading up to it ... impact how we perceive what's going on, so if we can kind of help a person to be calm and talk about anything that they're concerned about and feel safe, then it will be an easier thing to experience,” she said. googletag.cmd.push(function() { if($(document).width()<900) { s = googletag.defineSlot('/50748803/pvol-all-bigbox', [300, 250], 'div-gpt-1648064209272-bbm5'); s.setTargeting('URL', [window.location.pathname]); s.setTargeting('position', [1648064209272]) s.addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().refresh([s], {changeCorrelator: false}); } }); “And again, knowing the why. It’s a means to an end, and the end is a good one — being cancer-free.” The Pop-Up Pap Test Clinic takes place on January 22nd from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at 385 Main Street in Winkler. Anyone with a cervix is welcome. With files from Jayme Giesbrecht
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Lithium study yields insights in the fight against HIV
Study in human cells finds low-cost drug keeps virus dormant through an unexpected pathway, pointing the way to new treatments Lithium, a widely used treatment for bipolar disorder and other mood disorders, has shown early promise in suppressing HIV, McGill University researchers report. A new study published in iScience found lithium can prevent infected cells from reactivating, and that it does so through an unexpected biological mechanism. The findings point toward future treatments designed to mimic lithium’s beneficial effects while avoiding its broader impacts on the body. “One major thrust in HIV cure research is asking whether existing drugs can be repurposed. Because lithium is inexpensive and already approved for other uses, it offers a faster starting point than developing a new drug from scratch,” said senior author Andrew Mouland, Professor in McGill’s Department of Medicine and Head of the HIV-1 RNA Trafficking Laboratory at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research. The results do not mean people with HIV should take lithium, he said. The psychoactive drug can cause significant side effects and has not yet been tested in humans as an HIV treatment. A step toward a ‘functional cure’ An estimated 40.8 million people around the world were living with HIV in 2024. Even with effective antiretroviral therapy, the virus can remain hidden in immune cells and rebound if daily treatment stops. A “functional cure” aims to overcome this challenge. Rather than eliminating the virus entirely, the goal is to keep HIV dormant, so it cannot restart infection, potentially reducing the need for continuous daily medication. “In our experiments, lithium directly suppressed HIV reactivation in lab-grown human cells, something that had not been clearly demonstrated before,” said first author Ana-Luiza Abdalla, who conducted the work as a PhD student at McGill and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Montreal Neurological Institute. As well, the team gained new insights into the mechanism involved. Earlier research suggested lithium might work by activating autophagy, the cell’s recycling system. Because many drugs studied in HIV cure research affect this pathway, scientists assumed autophagy was responsible for keeping the virus dormant. This study challenges that assumption, made possible by a fluorescence-based test developed by University of Manitoba researcher Thomas Murooka that allows scientists to distinguish between dormant and active virus in cells. “What surprised us was that the effect persisted even when we disrupted autophagy,” Abdalla said. “That suggests other pathways are involved, possibly ones HIV relies on to restart.” About the study “Lithium attenuates HIV-1 latency reversal in an autophagy-independent way” by Ana-Luiza Abdalla, Gabriel Guajardo-Contreras, Meijuan Niu, Thomas Murooka and Andrew J. Mouland was published in iScience. Funding was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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