HPV programme to get PAHO support

Aug 09, 2015 News

– vaccines to slated for arrival this month

While not detailing the nature of the challenges that were experienced, a meeting between officials of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the Ministry of Health saw Dr. Janice Woolford admitting that there were some problems associated with the Ministry of Health’s Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Programme.
Dr. Woolford formerly headed the Health Ministry’s Maternal and Child Health Unit but has since taken up an appointment at the local PAHO headquarters.
At the meeting between the two sides during the past week, she disclosed, “We initially had some problems with it (HPV programme) but the vaccines will soon be here in August.”
This publication had earlier this year received information that the Ministry’s HPV programme had in fact been halted. This state of affairs was confirmed by an official close to the MCH Unit.
The HPV Vaccination programme was introduced in January 2012 as a $40 million venture. It was launched at the East La Penitence Health Centre by then Minister of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran. He had then informed that one of the vaccines can cost as much as US$14, making it arguably the most expensive vaccination programme administered by the Ministry. The former Minister had, on multiple occasions, deemed the programme a success. But, in March of last year, an MCH official confirmed that there were no vaccines, ultimately bringing the programme to a standstill.
In order to reach its target of young girls between the ages of 11 and 13, the vaccine Gardasil, was being administered at schools to help tackle HPV.

Dr. Janice Woolford

A potential impact of contracting cervical cancer is the development of other health conditions such as genital warts and even cancers of the anus, vagina and vulva.
The official pointed out to this publication that while the programme was intended to be offered on a national scale, there were some regions that were not benefiting from it. The official disclosed too that, at least, Regions Eight and 10 were among those that had not accessed the vaccine. This was due to the fact that the Vaccination Centre did not have enough vaccines to ensure the two Regions benefited, said the official.
The programme was aimed at slashing the incidence of cervical cancer, which kills an estimated 80 Guyanese women annually. And in order to stem this health challenge, some 7,000 girls were slated to be vaccinated over a six-month period commencing in January, 2012.
The official was, however, not in a position earlier this year to speak of the number of vaccines that has thus far been administered. “I don’t know much about that but there are other persons within MCH (Maternal and Child Health Unit) who will get that tallying done,” said the official who assured that as soon as vaccines arrive the programme will be revived.
But the reportedly stalled HPV programme is likely to be corrected soon, as according to Dr. Woolford it is expected that, with the support of PAHO, the HPV vaccines would arrive in Guyana by this month end.
Among the vaccines that are slated to arrive this month too are those to tackle Chicken Pox and Inactivated Poliovirus (IPV).
According to Dr. Woolford, it is expected that the introduction of IPV at a cost of some US$100,000 will be undertaken by GAVI. GAVI is a Vaccine Alliance which is a public-private global health partnership committed to increasing access to immunization in poor countries.
“This funding has not quite been approved but the project has been approved to see the introduction of new vaccines,” Dr. Woolford said.
She disclosed that once the vaccine arrives, PAHO/WHO in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health will seek to have it introduced into the vaccination programme by September 1, 2015.
This strategic collaboration is in fact part of PAHO/WHO’s Endgame Plan. The Plan was developed in response to the World Health Assembly in May 2012 which declared the completion of poliovirus eradication to be a programmatic emergency for global public health. According to Dr. Woolford, based on this initiative, it was recommended that all countries must introduce at least one dose of IPV along with the regular vaccination schedule.
Already PAHO has facilitated the training of health workers across the administrative regions and another bout of training within the respective regions are expected to commence shortly with continued PAHO support.