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EU health agency laments lack of girls administered anti-cancer vaccine
European Centre for Disease Prevention calls for national immunisation programmes to intensify campaigns.
Malta's HPV vaccination campaign for girls should commence in the autumn.
A national vaccination programme for 12-year-olds against the human papillomavirus (HPV) is to be rolled out in the autumn, in the wake of a warning by the EU's centre for disease prevention (ECDC) about the lack of girls that are being vaccinated against the virus.
A total of 19 out of 29 countries in the EU and the European Economic Area (Norway and Iceland but not Liechtenstein) have implemented a routine HPV vaccination programme and 10 countries have introduced catch-up programmes.
Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Poland and Slovakia have not yet introduced a national immunisation programme - a report by the ECDC said - although health minister Joe Cassar announced the programme back in May.
The human papillomavirus is transmitted through sexual activity and has been linked to cervical cancer in women.
The vaccination will be made available for free at all national health centres as part of government's National Cancer Plan and National Sexual Health Strategy.
There are around 2,000 12-year-old girls in Malta and all will be invited by way of a letter to go to a health centre with their parents to receive the vaccine.
Cervical cancer is usually found in woman over the age of 30 and has been linked with HPV which can be contracted as soon as a girl becomes sexually active and can take 10 to 15 years to seriously develop.
There are some 10 to 12 cervical cancer cases diagnosed in Malta every year and HPV has been known to accelerate the development of cancer through precancerous lesions of the cervix.
Too few girls in Europe are being vaccinated against the HPV virus, the ECDC said in a report issued last week, in which it called for a aggressive national campaigns to inform parents and healthcare workers about the sexually transmitted virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 500,000 new cases of cervical cancer and 250,000 deaths from the disease worldwide each year.
HPV is a group of viruses, at least 14 types of which are classified as "high risk" and can cause cervical cancer in women. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is a "common virus that is easily spread by skin-to-skin contact during sexual activity with another person."
But in the US In the US, the HPV vaccine has been a controversial political issue, with some public officials questioning its safety, and social conservatives questioning whether or not it would promote sexual promiscuity.
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It has become a custom of the WHO to push the drug companies products. If you have children approaching puberty beware the risks of this vaccination. The doctor/scientist who developed the two vaccines on the market felt that she had to make a conference (so as she said in her own words "so that she could sleep) to tell the worls the the risk carried in vaccination does not merit the low occurrence in HPV and she was talking about U.S.A. statistics.
We all remember the scare mongering regarding the bird flu and the other pandemics that fortunately never happened but made enormous money for the producers of the vaccines. We all know the millions of money that were thrown away in the purchasing of these vaccines that were never used.
So I tell NCE before you comment please make your research of what happens behind the scenes. And no government should ever impose vaccines on anyone 'just in case' except when there is a real and present threat.
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As per usual we lack behind the rest of Europe. Perhaps it costs the department too much money to implement although with such a small proportion of people it shouldn't be that expensive. The PM can get funding for it from the EU, his favourite place of funding.
