Competing interests: The BMJ has judged that there are no disqualifying financial ties to commercial companies. The authors declare the following other interests: KC and MSa are co-principal investigators of a major screening trial in Australia (Compass), which is coordinated at the Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer (ACPCC), a government funded not-for-profit health promotion charity. Compass has received operational support from the Australian government and the ACPCC has received equipment and a funding contribution for the Compass trial from Roche Molecular Systems USA. KC and MSa are also co-principal investigators on the program “Elimination of Cervical Cancer in the Western Pacific (ECCWP),” which will receive support from the Minderoo Foundation and the Frazer Family Foundation and equipment donations from Cepheid. Sciensano, the employer of MA received funding from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, through the RISCC Network (Grant No 847845); from VALGENT and VALHUDES, which are two researcher-induced protocols for evaluation of HPV tests on clinician-collected and self-taken samples, respectively. MA did not receive any financial or material benefit from these projects. Further details of The BMJ policy on financial interests is here: https://www.bmj.com/sites/default/files/attachments/resources/2016/03/16-current-bmj-education-coi-form.pdf.”