Campaigners today unveiled an awareness campaign about cervical cancer.
The Marie Keating Foundation announced its campaign, It starts with you, to educate women on cervical cancer, which kills about 70 Irish women a year, its cause and how it can be prevented through regular screening.
Cervical cancer is the second-most common cancer in women under 45 and the third-leading cause of cancer deaths among women worldwide after breast and lung cancer, according to the Irish cancer charity.
About 180 women are newly diagnosed with the disease every year, and about 70 die from it.
It is not genetically transmitted. Two particular strands of the human papillomavirus - which has more than 100 strands - are known to be linked to the onset of abnormalities in the neck of the womb that can become cancerous.
Drugs companies Merck and GSK, have now developed effective vaccines to prevent infection with these common types of HPV virus - which cause around 70 per cent of all cervical cancers.
Up to 80 per cent of women will be infected by some type of HPV at some point in their lives. Infection with HPV is more common in women who smoke and in those who have sex at an early age.
Regular cervical smear tests in women over 25 are an effective way of screening for the disease, which typically takes many years to develop and which can be cured if caught early enough.
Minister for Health Mary Harney has promised to begin a national cervical screening programme, along the lines of the BreastCheck programme, to screen for breast cancer in older women, but it has not yet been rolled out.
There has also been recent controversy over the time it is taking to return smear tests from laboratories. In some cases, the tests were sent to the United States due to a backlog in Irish hospitals and laboratories.
A mobile phone charm will be on sale in selected Marks & Spencer stores this month as part of the awareness campaign. All the proceeds will go to the Marie Keating Foundation.
Information on cervical cancer is also available on www.preventcervicalcancer.ie