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Vaccine to protect girls from cervical cancer launched
– to cost Guyana US$14 each
The Ministry of Health yesterday launched an ambitious project to slash the incidence of cervical cancer, which kills an estimated 80 Guyanese women annually.
An 11-year-old girl was the first to receive the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine when the programme was launched at the East La Penitence Health Centre, in Georgetown. She is one of 7,000 girls who would be vaccinated over the next six months.
The vaccination programme aims to arrest the potential impact of women contracting cervical cancer and also to prevent other health issues such as genital warts and even cancers of the anus, vagina and vulva. The programme targets mainly females between the ages of 11 and 13 years.
The first girl to receive an HPV vaccine, which will protect her from developing cervical cancer.
The start of the vaccine programme was launched under the theme “Early detection saves lives”, as Guyana joined the world in celebrating Cervical Cancer Awareness month.
Minister of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, during the launch said the initiative should be seen as one of the tools to fight the much dreaded disease which affects hundreds of thousands of women globally.
He explained that the launch of the vaccine was another step by the Health Ministry to bring more services to wider sections of the population.
“It is a costly venture and in the atmosphere and in the environment now where there is contracting budgets especially from international agencies especially from our health programmes, it must be seen as a bold step,” Dr Ramsaran stated.
One of the vaccines can cost as much as US$14, making it among the more expensive vaccines in the programmes administered by the Ministry of Health.
The HPV vaccination programme was first introduced by former Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, who had anticipated that approximately $40M would have been utilized to introduce the vaccine to about 25,000 girls and eventually mount to about $60M to cater to 40,000 girls.
At the time, he had hinted at the possibility of the vaccine being offered to girls as young as nine-years-old and being a collaborative effort with the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Guyana Parenthood Association.
Cervical Cancer, the former Minister had said, is one of the main cancers in women worldwide. He reported even then that approximately 450 persons die each year from cancer and one of the most common cancers in Guyana is that of the cervix.
In 2007, a total of 77 women died of cervical cancer with Guyana with an incidence rate of cervical cancer about 45 per 100,000 women.
“This means that each year about 150 to 200 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer. At present, the mortality rate associated with these cancer cases is about 20 per 100,000 women,” the Minister had pointed out.
This, he said, means that each year about 80 women die because of cervical cancer and studies have shown that the HPV is the causative agent for more than 85 percent of cervical cancer.
The main transmission route for HPV is through sex and the modes of transmission of this virus are similar to that of HIV.
As such the HPV vaccine is intended to protect against future infection with HPV, with the rationale being that girls are immunized against its impact even before they become sexually active.
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