Maina Modu's wife died from cervical cancer in 2011. Last year, he helped launch an HPV vaccination campaign — including vaccinations for his own daughters. Courtesy Maina Modu

Maina Modu, an immunization officer in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, lost his wife, Hauwa, to cervical cancer in 2011. She was one of the 349,000 women globally who die from the preventable cancer every year. Thirteen years later, he jumped at the chance to protect his family and community from undergoing such loss again.

In May 2024, Modu helped launch Borno’s first immunization campaign to vaccinate adolescent girls against human papillomavirus (HPV), the pathogen that causes nearly all cervical cancers. And he made sure two of his daughters, including the youngest child of his late wife, were among the

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