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HPV vaccines arrive in Guyana

Oct 30, 2011 News

 

 

 

Within a matter of two weeks 20,000 doses of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) will be administered to girls as young as 11-years-old, as part of the Ministry of Health’s attempt to protect them against cervical cancer.
On Friday, Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy said that “I am in the position today to say that the HPV vaccine that we have been working on for a long time has finally arrived in Guyana.”
The vaccines, he said, were even then being prepared for distribution around the country, adding that “hopefully this will now ensure that all young girls will receive their vaccines and be protected.” He revealed too that if Guyana is to succeed in immunizing all young girls from now on then it will be in the position to say that cervical cancer would be part of history and no longer be a public health problem of a magnitude that exist today.
The Minister expressed satisfaction even as he observed that the World Health Organization and the United States Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) are recommending that the HPV vaccine should be for both boys and girls.
However, the programme for now will be introduced in Guyana only for girls.  “We are going to vaccinate the girls because of cost, not because of public health science. Public Health Science says that both boys and girls should be vaccinated because at the end of the day we should ask where girls get it from, it is a sexually transmitted infection…so the boys have it too.”
The Minister noted though that while the vaccination process is not merely an anti-HPV campaign but rather it is a cervical cancer campaign. However, he revealed that campaign will undergo a metamorphosis where it will be an anti-HPV campaign.
HPV, he explained, is well known as a cause of cervical cancer but there is now growing evidence that it is also contributing to other cancers such as prostate and colon thus it would make sense that everyone be vaccinated.
“For cost purposes and because the evidence of HPV being the major cause of cervical cancer we are starting with an anti-cervical cancer HPV vaccine campaign but as soon as our resources allow us we will transform the programme into an HPV campaign where both boys and girls will be vaccinated.”

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