UK to give cancer jabs to school girls

Published Oct 30, 2007

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By Peter Griffiths

All girls aged 12 to 13 in England will be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes most cervical cancer cases, the government said.

From next autumn, girls will receive three injections at school over six months in a move that could save up to 400 lives each year, the department of health said.

Teenagers up to the age 18 will also be vaccinated during a one-off programme lasting two years. The scheme is also expected to be adopted in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Cervical cancer kills about 800 women each year in England and up to 300 000 globally, mostly in developing countries.

Women must still take regular smear tests to detect early signs of the cancer, which has a good cure rate if it is diagnosed early.

"It is critical that people do not see this vaccine as a replacement for the screening programme," the department of health's director of immunisation Professor David Salisbury told a news conference.

The vaccine is given to young girls because the vaccines are ineffective once a patient is already infected, he added. The injections can be painful and can cause soreness and swelling.

The move is a boost for drugmakers Merck and Sanofi-Aventis, which jointly market the vaccine Gardasil. GlaxoSmithKline offers another cervical cancer vaccine, Cervarix.

The department of health has not decided which of the two drugs it will buy, but said it was unlikely that it would use both at the same time.

"It is highly likely it will be one or the other," Salisbury said.

Britain is the latest European country to offer the vaccine routinely to girls, following similar moves by Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Norway.

Many other countries around the world have also opted for vaccination on the basis the investment will save lives and healthcare costs in the years ahead.

Gardasil and Cervarix work by cutting the risk of infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), which infects most women at some time during their lives. The infection can cause pre-cancerous and cancerous lesions, as well as genital warts.

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