Cervical cancer vaccine to be given to school girls

The UK health authorities have developed a programme for the vaccination of young school girls to save them from human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes upto 70% cervical cancer cases.

Human Pappillomavirus is a group of hundred different types of viruses. Almost 30 of these viruses are transmitted sexually and cause infection in the genital area. Cervical cancer, a sexually transmitted disease, affecting the area of the cervix, the lower part of the uterus (womb) that opens at the top of the vagina is caused by sexual transmission of HPV. Only certain strains of HPV cause cervical cancer, the others result in genital verrucas.

Gardasil, the vaccine for protecting women or girls can prevent developing infections when they are sexually active. Once the symptoms start developing, the vaccine can’t be of any help. Due to this reason, the health authorities decided to give the vaccine before a girl becomes sexually active.

The programme is supported by all the parents of UK as they too are bothered about their girl’s future. However, the nationwide vaccination programme was not supported by parents in the USA, as they thought this will give a green signal to their young girls to have sex.

Having sex at an early age, multiple sexual partners, sexual partners who have multiple partners or who participate in high-risk sexual activities, Long-term use of birth control pills (more than 5 years) and Infections with genital herpes or chronic chlamydia infections can cause cervical cancer. Not only this, a weakened immunity system can also lead to development of the disease.

The final approval to grant Gardasil a full license, which was suggested by European Medicines Agency expert committee, will be given in October 2006. This will help the authorities to easily administer the vaccine to women and girls in the age group of 9-26.
Unless the approval is given, the vaccines can’t be used in schools.

More than 500 women have been found infected with cervical cancer and approximately 100 die every year. Treatment with Gardasil proved to be efficacious. Health experts however say that it is better to eradicate the disease even before the seed is sown.

The symptoms of cervical cancer include loss of appetite and weight, pelvic, back and leg pain, fatigue, heavy bleeding from the vagina, bone fractures, etc. Various types of treatments are available, but only some types of cervical cancers can be cured and sometimes, the cancer comes back too. The acute cases do not respond to the treatment at all.

Surgery and radiations are also used to treat the cancer, but they to have side effects and chances for the cancer to come back are also a major issue. With the new vaccine, early-stage cervical cancer and precancerous lesions can be prevented. The highly effective vaccine was approved in June 2006.

The health authorities of UK are now on ‘mission eradication’. Scientists say that a universal vaccine should be developed which can be given to men too. Dr. Bradley Monk said that in order to extirpate the disease, vaccines should be developed for males as well, as there are chances that males can pass the infection on to women, who then go on to develop cancer of the cervix.

The Catholic Churches have opposed to the move as this goes against their sexual health strategies.

Roseanna Cunningham, SNP chairwoman of the Scottish Parliament's health committee, said that everybody should stand together for the programme and there should be no morality issue as the vaccinations will help develop a better and healthy nation.