New Zealand minister’s cervical cancer diagnosis prompts calls for better screening

Advocates call for for self-testing as another path to regular screening for the HPV virus that causes nearly all cervical cancer

Women's health advocates in New Zealand are calling for the government to improve the country's cervical cancer screening programme following minister Kiritapu Allan's shock diagnosis.

Allan, the 37-year-old minister for conservation and civil defence, shared that she had stage-three cancer in a Facebook post on Tuesday, in which she wrote that she had felt uncomfortable about the invasive screening test.