Cervical cancer suppression hinges on HPV vaccination - CMO

Cervical cancer suppression hinges on HPV vaccination – CMO

Aug 26, 2012 News

Premised on the notion that ‘prevention is better than cure’, the Ministry of Health earlier this year introduced a pilot vaccination campaign against the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) which is known to cause cervical cancer.
This strategic move, according to Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud, was certainly not impulsive but rather was based on the fact that the level of cervical cancers has been creeping up slowly. Detection, he said, was made possible through the Visual Inspection Acid (VIA) screening programme which has been introduced by the Ministry to Health facilities across the country.
“We are able to capture a lot more lesions early and respond to them earlier, rather than wait for signs and symptoms to develop, but the reality is that the situation is threatening to become a bigger problem and we need to do something about that,” Dr. Persaud asserted during an interview with this publication.
He revealed that the risk of children, young girls in particular, contracting HPV and its development into cancer later in their lives, was a glaring issue that was observed and was recognised as one that needed to be addressed with much urgency.
“HPV stood out because for the first time we were able to identify a virus that is linked to a cancer directly. We know that if you are exposed to it at some point in time you do develop cells that are cancerous that can mutate into full cancer cells, so that started a global effort to deal with this virus.”
Against this background, the CMO disclosed that the Government, through the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Health Authorities, the World Health Organisation, the Pan American Health Organisation, has been looking at various ways in which to protect people’s health.
The local health sector, according to Dr. Persaud, has been mirroring moves by the Western Hemisphere to accept and utilise well tested drugs required to play a role in reducing cervical cancer. In fact, he revealed that some countries have implemented programmes to immunise both girls and boys. However, the local Ministry has only been targeting girls who are between the ages of 11 and 13.
“We are only vaccinating our girls right now because this is an expensive endeavour…the cost is like four times the cost of a polio vaccine and vaccines are new on the market and they are now being developed…”
The Ministry of Health was able to procure and has thus far distributed in excess of 6,000 doses of the Gardasil vaccine to facilitate the vaccination programme. According to Dr. Persaud, Gardasil was used based on a decision to look at all the statistics that were available to select the right type of HPV. As such, some preliminary work on the different types of vaccines was done, with Gardasil being deemed the best fit for the circulating HPVs in Guyana.
There has, however, been public outcry that the vaccine could have negative side effects that have been experienced in some parts of the world.
“All countries have to make that decision as to what is the best fit and we have made that decision. Like everything else, vaccines as a prophylaxis have areas of concern, possible side effects, and we have alerted people to this, but none of them has emerged to bar a parent from ensuring that their child gets this crucial, life-saving vaccine.”
We have to weigh the pros and cons and we see it as a worthwhile venture for us.”
Persaud pointed out that the Ministry of Health has commenced wide-reaching educational work, adding that “once you speak to persons as we are doing with the mothers, the girls and the teachers, we can improve the quality and depth at which we educate.”
Dr. Persaud also spoke of the need to educate more males, as well pointing out that “we are not doing so much with them, but we should let them understand, because they can have an impact on our young people.”
It is the expectation of the Chief Medical Officer that the status of HPV could become as that of polio and measles which are currently not impacting the health sector.
Among the facilities that have been tasked with administering the vaccine are health centres in Regions Three, Four, Five and Six. According to information received from the Ministry’s vaccination department, a total of 1,428 first doses and 942 second doses have been administered. Dr. Persaud asserted that the real impact of the HPV vaccine would be known within the next 10 or 20 years.

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Cervical cancer suppression hinges on HPV vaccination – CMO

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