On the front line of war against HPV
Cheryl Staurulakis is leading a cause to get residents protected against the human papilloma virus, better known as HPV.
The 53-year-old was outraged after watching a documentary about the virus, and how easily it could be prevented.
“If there was a vaccine for breast cancer, people would be trampling each other to get it,” Mrs Staurulakis said.
“But only 20 per cent of people in Bermuda are vaccinated against the HPV virus, which is responsible for about 69 per cent of cervical cancers.
“It is because of a lack of discussion about it between doctors and patients.”
Mrs Staurulakis is the outreach producer for Frederic Lumiere’s documentaries, Someone You Love: The HPV Epidemic, and its follow-up, Lady Ganga.
Her role is to drum up support for the films and raise awareness of HPV — it is one of many causes the philanthropist has aided over the past 30 years.
Someone You Love follows five women with cervical cancer and discusses the importance of the HPV vaccine for children and young adults.
HPV is responsible for most cervical cancer and can lead to five other cancers.
Mrs Staurulakis and her husband, Leo, are donating copies of Someone You Love to 33 schools and Bermuda College this month. The documentary will screen at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute next week as part of Cervical Cancer Awareness Month.
There were 15 reported cases of cervical cancer in Bermuda in 2014.
“The population here is so educated,” said Mrs Staurulakis, who is originally from Maryland. “There are no remote areas to access. With some education we could eradicate cervical cancer from Bermuda entirely.”
The vaccine is relatively cheap and easy to access here.
“Insurance will pay about 80 per cent,” she said.
“At [Hamilton Health Clinic] it is available for $13 a dose. In Maryland, it is $167.”
She knew little about the HPV virus before she saw Someone You Love.
“My mother instilled in myself and my three sisters the need to give back and help others,” Mrs Staurulakis said.
“It’s in my blood. I try to use my time wisely and to help others. There is always a need and it’s easy when you know your time is making lives better.
“I was angry because the human papilloma virus is responsible for most cervical cancer and five other types of cancer.
“I’m an educated person, but I had no idea. A woman dies from cervical cancer, somewhere in the world, every two minutes.”
The US Centres for Disease Control and Protection recommends that children are vaccinated against HPV from age 11, or before they become sexually active.
The vaccine can be administered as early as age 9 and as late as the early twenties.
“Some parents are resistant to getting their children vaccinated because they think it will cause their children to become promiscuous,” Mrs Staurulakis said. “But with HPV, body fluids don’t need to be exchanged. It is exchanged through skin-to-skin contact. That means it can be exchanged if the genitals touch, or genitals touch the mouth. The virus seems to like the moist parts of our bodies.”
Mrs Staurulakis has three grown sons. Her youngest, Nicholas, was vaccinated before she saw Someone You Love, on the recommendation of his doctor.
“At that time, I’d heard about HPV but I didn’t really know anything,” she said.
She was relieved she had made that decision once she saw the film. The HPV virus can cause certain types of cancer in men and is responsible for genital warts. Men can pass the virus on to their partners.
“We aired the film at Nicholas’s college,” Mrs Staurulakis said. “At the end of the film all the students had their heads down texting away.
“I thought, ‘We’ve lost them. The film didn’t go over’. It turned out they were all texting their mothers to see if they’d been vaccinated.
“After the film we took my son to dinner and a group of students followed us and stood around our table, asking us questions about the film and talking about HPV.
“It was very gratifying because one in two college students is a carrier for the HPV virus. Most HPV infections clear up, but it seems like for some people, their immune system can’t fight it off.”
She said people needed to understand that the HPV virus was a global epidemic, adding: “It doesn’t have to exist.”
• Someone You Love is being shown at the BUEI next Thursday at 6.30pm. Entry is free. For more information, visit hpvepidemic.com
• Eighty per cent of people age 50 or younger will have HPV at some point in their lives.
• HPV is spread by skin-to-skin contact, and condoms do not fully prevent the spread of the virus.
• HPV can lay dormant in a person’s system for years, only to show up later in the form of precancerous or cancerous cells.
• There were 15 reported cases of cervical cancer in Bermuda in 2014.
• In 2014 there were also six reported cases of mouth, throat, oesophagus and nasal cancer related to the HPV virus.
• The HPV vaccination rate is about 20 per cent in Bermuda.
• Most cases of cervical cancer can be attributed to the HPV virus.
• A woman dies from cervical cancer, globally, every two minutes.
• Cervical cancer does not have to be deadly if caught early. At the very early stages of the disease, there are usually no symptoms or signs. As the cancer grows, symptoms can include abnormal vaginal bleeding — bleeding that occurs between periods, during sex, or after menopause. Pain during sex and vaginal discharge are other possible symptoms. The condition can be detected through a Papanicolaou (Pap) test.
