Minister for Women and Tauranga Labour candidate Jan Tinetti today cut the ribbon on equipment to be used to process new self-tests aimed at helping to beat cervical cancer.

It comes after the Government rolled out the new human papillomavirus (HPV) self-test initiative nationally on Tuesday and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced a new policy to make cervical screening free for all 25 to 69-year-olds if re-elected.

The HPV self-test is a vaginal swab, which can be done by a nurse or doctor, or by the patient. This detects HPV - a common infection that usually clears up on its own, RNZ reported.

The self-test will become the main test for cervical screening, but if it detects changes caused by HPV, the patient will be referred for a further smear test.

It will be available at primary health providers, Family Planning and Support to Screening Services.

Testing has also been made free for many higher-risk groups from Tuesday, including Māori and Pasifika people of all ages, over-30s who had not had a screening in the past five years, those who need follow-up testing and those with a Community Services Card.

Labour candidate Jan Tinetti at Pathlab at Tauranga Hospital. Photo / Alex Cairns

According to the Time to Screen cervical screening website, cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers. Of the 180 people who get cervical cancer in Aotearoa New Zealand every year, 85 per cent have either never been screened or have not had regular screening.

Tinetti was welcomed to Pathlab at Tauranga Hospital with a mihi whakatau [traditional Māori welcome ceremony] and was accompanied by Bay of Plenty Labour candidate Pare Taikato.

Tinetti cut the ribbon on the new BD-COR instrument in the laboratory which will be processing HPV tests. The instrument also does STI testing and will have the capability to test for Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses in the next few months.

A Pathlab briefing said the primary test for cervical screening had changed from cytology (testing the cells of the vagina or cervix) to HPV testing from Tuesday.

It is expected the new HPV primary screening will provide easier access to screening and help eliminate ethnic disparities.

The briefing said the World Health Organisation launched a global strategy to “eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem” by achieving an incidence rate of less than four in 100,000 women.

The National Cervical Screening Programme had made “great progress” through the implementation of the screening process to bring it down, but more needed to be done.

Since the programme started in 1990, the incidence of cervical cancer had decreased by about 50 per cent. In 2017, the incidence of cervical cancer was 6.1 per 100,000 women.

Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.