The Community Care Fund will implement a three-year pilot scheme tomorrow to provide free or subsidised cervical cancer screening for eligible low-income women.
The scheme will subsidise about 66,000 women to undergo cervical cancer screening tests at 10 service centres of three service providers - the Chinese University's Centre of Research & Promotion of Women's Health, the Family Planning Association and the United Christian Nethersole Community Health Service.
Briefing the media today, Head of the Surveillance & Epidemiology Branch of the Centre for Health Protection Dr Regina Ching said the scheme will reduce the risk of developing cervical cancer among low-income women.
The service providers will encourage low-income women to receive free or subsidised cervical cancer screening and provide them with health education on prevention.
Dr Ching said: "In 2015 cervical cancer was the seventh most common form of cancer among women in Hong Kong. There were 500 new cases of cervical cancer, accounting for 3.3% of all new cancer cases in females.
"In 2016 cervical cancer was the ninth leading cause of female cancer death, with 151 deaths recorded and accounting for 2.6% of all cancer deaths in females."
Click here for details on the scheme.