Alfaro, Karla

Karla Alfaro, MD MPH is Medical Director at Basic Health International, a non-profit organization dedicated to the elimination of cervical cancer through research, advocacy, and education.
For the past 13 years, Dr. Alfaro has worked to make cervical cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment accessible to women in developing countries. She has also conducted extensive research related to new cervical cancer screening and treatment technologies in different countries. She is part of a team that pioneered the implementation of novel strategies to combine large-scale screening with immediate treatment in El Salvador, reaching more than 185,000 women to date. The paradigm was adopted by the government of El Salvador and is currently a national program. In addition, Dr. Alfaro is a co-author of technical and training manuals on the implementation of HPV testing for the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, and the Center for Disease Control, and she acts as technical advisor to other countries that are working towards the implementation of an HPV test into their national cervical cancer screening programs. Dr. Alfaro is the recipient of the 2021 Rachel Pearline Award.