15/01/2026
Jospehine shares how HPV tests are done.
Post Courier – January 14th. Story by Grace Auka-Salmang
Critical services such as the human papilloma virus (HPV) services are currently lacking in most of the provincial hospitals, including Port Moresby General Hospital. One of the familiar faces who used to serve women who wanted to get tested for HPV at the Her Health Hub at the Badili clinic was Josephine Gabuzzi.
Located at the Stop and Shop Badili, the City Pharmacy Limited Foundation and Sir Brian Bell Foundation officially launched and opened this facility last year. It is a cervical cancer screening clinic dedicated to improving access to life-saving women’s health services with immediate referral pathways to Port Moresby General Hospital’s Obstetric and Gynaecology Clinic for women requiring treatment.
As the project coordinator for the Elimination of Cervical cancer program (ECCP) in Western Highlands Province Josephine was based at this facility for two weeks to monitor and oversee the progress of this services for the women of the nation’s capital. “We have screened over 25,000 women and vaccinated almost 11,000 girls with the HPV vaccine. This has been done with the special support of the Kirby Institute. We are doing both static clinic and outreach where we have a van which all the equipment’s are set inside, and we travel out to the remote areas in Western Highlands to screen and vaccinate almost 11,000 girls with HPV vaccine. This has been done with the special support of the Kirby Institute.
Ms Gabuzzi said that when women is tested positive with HPV virus shell be brought to the treatment room for pre counselling and then asked to sign a consent form. “she has to undergo some procedures like to do a abdominal palpitation, do speculum examination, and paint the cervix with vinegar and if there is changes or white patches on the cervix, there’s no white patches, we will still treat with thermal ablation device for 60 seconds.
“we will then do post counselling and advise her to come back after one year for retesting again. If the women’s HPV test is positive, she will be referred to Port Moresby General Hospital. A GeneXpert machine will be used to detect HPV virus 16, 18, 45 and others which are high risk causing about 70% of cervical cancer worldwide. She said clinic staff were trained in February last year, but she was here to support them technically and do the clinic set up, the data, the patient flow and other tasks.
