Cohort Profile: African Collaborative Center for Microbiome and Genomics Research’s (ACCME's) Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and Cervical Cancer Study

Why was the cohort set up?Globally, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women, with an estimated 528 000 new cases in 2012. 1 Although it remains a significant public health problem worldwide, the burden of cervical cancer falls disproportionately on low-resource countries.In the USA, the incidence rate of cervical cancer was 6.6 per 100 000 in 2012, 1 compared with 23.0 per 100 000 in Nigeria 2 which had about half the population of the USA in 2012.Persistent high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) infection of the cervix is a necessary cause of cervical cancer. 3,4About 80% of sexually active individuals become