Row over cervical cancer vaccine for girls

by Paul Conneally | June 18, 2008 at 02:16 pm

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Penny pinching around important health issues like this can't be a good thing. If it's worth doing do it well. The task now, which ever vaccine is used, is to get the capaign right so that as many young girls take up the offer of the vaccine, which is best done before they become sexually active, and we could see deaths due to cervical cancer drop enornously.

Up until this government initiative only rich parents could afford to get their daughters vaccinated - now they will get it free on the National Health which has to be good.

The Government has come under fire over its choice of vaccine for protecting girls against cervical cancer.

Campaigners and charities questioned why the Department of Health opted for Cervarix over the more widely-used Gardasil.

Lisa Power, head of policy at the Terrence Higgins Trust, accused it of "saving pennies to spend pounds later" by not choosing the jab that also protects against genital warts.

The Department of Health announced on Wednesday afternoon that pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has won the contract to provide Cervarix for use across England.

Cervarix will be given to girls aged 12 and 13 from this September in an attempt to cut the number contracting Human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes most cases of cervical cancer.

Cervarix guards against two strains of the HPV virus - 16 and 18 - which cause 70% of cases of cervical cancer. Gardasil protects against strains 6, 11, 16 and 18, lesions and genital warts.