Ontario Government to Unveil New HPV Immunization Program

The government of Ontario is slated to announce an immunization program for teenage girls in the province that will afford them protection against a virus believed to cause cervical cancer. The announcement will be made by Premier Dalton McGuinty this morning.

The Premier is scheduled to address a press conference at the Women’s College Hospital. At the conference, he is to announce the benefits of the immunization program, which will target 85,000 girls of Grade 8. They will be immunized from this fall. The treatment is, however, optional.

The vaccine in question is Gardasil, a drug that was approved by Health Canada last year. The three-shot course is touted to immunize the recipients from the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV has been found to cause cancer of the cervix, vulva, and vagina.

Studies have shown the HPV virus afflicts 550 women a year in Ontario, claiming an estimated 150 lives. A spokesman for the Premier said the vaccine would be an effective means of saving the lives of women who could potentially be afflicted by the virus.

Ontario would be the third Canadian province to offer the vaccine as an option to its women. The other two provinces to have already offered this option are Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. While officials of Alberta province said they were not looking to offer the vaccine till the end of 2008, the other provinces do not seem inclined as yet.

Ontario has good reason to offer the vaccine. A new federal budget initiative has resulted in the allotment of $300 million to the three provinces. Ontario is slated to receive $117 million of this amount.

Ontario officials said the first phase of the program is for a period of three years. At the end of this period, the provincial government would try and ensure Ottawa provided permanent funding for the initiative.

The move has been widely applauded in the medical community of the province. According to Dr. Guylaine Lefebvre, cervical cancer would claim the lives of at least 400 women this year, and saw no reason why other provinces should not take up this initiative, especially as it was going to translate into saving thousands of lives.