Australia wants to be first nation in the world to eliminate a cancer - can it?

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. Australia wants to be first nation in the world to eliminate a cancer - can it? 3 hours ago Share Save Add as preferred on Google Tabby Wilson Sydney Nathan Morris/Australian Broadcasting Corporation Chrissy Walters' daughter is part of a generation Australia hopes will grow up without the burden of cervical cancer Six months after finally giving birth to her first child, following a years-long struggle to conceive, Chrissy Walters was told her daughter would likely grow up without her. Walters had suffered a major bleed while at home in Toowoomba - a small city two hours inland of Brisbane - and several hospital visits, doctor appointments and biopsies later, the then 39-year-old was handed an advanced cervical cancer diagnosis.

"I just said to Neil… there has been a huge mistake," Walters recalls. She's now spent more than a decade undergoing treatments - both debilitating and incredibly invasive - but the cancer has spread to other parts of her body. Her doctors say her diagnosis is now terminal.

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"I would never wish on my worst enemy," she says. Her daughter, now 12, has grown up with the disease omnipresent in her life - Walters says the family was having frank conversations about dying when she was as young as three. But in 2026, her daughter has reached the age when Australia begins vaccinating children in its bid to eliminate the disease that will eventually take her mother's life.

The country is on track to do that within a decade, and is now racing other nations to become the first in the world to eliminate any form of cancer. A two-pronged approach to elimination It's a scene familiar to many who've attended an Australian high school: a long line of fidgety 12 and 13-year-olds take their seat on a plastic chair, one by one, assured by a nurse that the needle will only hurt for a moment. Minutes later, they head back to class, sporting a circular plaster on their upper arm.

There are three vaccinations offered to high school students as part of the National Immunisation Programme, including the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Though HPV can have no symptoms, and even disappear without treatment, some high-risk strains can develop into cervical cancer, the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide. Fortunately, it is also one of the few causes of cancer people can be vaccinated against.

What Experts Say

University of Sydney Professor Karen Canfell is a pioneer of cervical cancer research A global leader in cervical cancer control, Professor Karen Canfell has seen the impact of the disease both in and beyond Australia. The epidemiologist tells the it feels like "everyone has a mother or a sister or a grandmother that's been impacted by cervical cancer". But in 2006, in a lab at the University of Queensland, there was a breakthrough.

After decades of research, Australian scientists had developed a pioneering new jab, named Gardasil, which could prevent HPV - and it had been approved by the medicines regulator.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.