Young girls to benefit from cervical cancer vaccinations

THIRTY-TWO thousand school girls in 13 districts in the Central and Northern regions are to benefit from cervical cancer vaccinations.
The beneficiaries who are school girls in Primary 4 and 5 would undergo a three-phase vaccination exercise against cervical cancer, which is said to be the leading cause of cancer deaths among women.
According to the National Programme Manager of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Kwadwo Odei Antwi-Agyei, the idea behind vaccinating girls against the Human Pappiloma Virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer is to protect them before their first sexual contact.
“This is because the vaccine can prevent cervical cancer in females if it is given before they are exposed to the virus since the HPV is easily acquired, even with only one sexual partner,” he explained.
“Therefore, it is important to get the HPV vaccine before any sexual contact takes place as the response to the vaccine is better at this age rather than at older ages,” he added.
In Ghana, current estimates indicate that on the average 3,038 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer while 2,006 of the number die from it every year. The cancer is also ranked as the first most frequently reported cancer among women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the country, followed by breast cancer and then liver cancer.
Globally, 500,000 new cases of cervical cancer are recorded, accounting for nine per cent of female cancer deaths.
At a press briefing in Accra recently, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Appiah Dankyira, said the Ministry of Health (MoH) had received 64,000 doses of the Human Papillovirus Vaccines (HPV), worth $8,289,408, to help prevent cervical cancer among women of reproductive age.
The vaccines were provided by Axios of the USA through the Rural Women’s Initiative for Self-Empowerment (Ruwide).
The exercise is on the theme: “Prevent cervical cancer, vaccinate the girl child”, and all seven districts in the Central Region and six others in the Northern Region would benefit from the exercise.
The districts in the Central Region are Awutu-Senya, Awutu-Senya East, Cape Coast, Efutu, Ekumfi, Mfantseman and Agona West. Those in the Northern Region are East Gonja, Kumbungu, Mion, Savelugu-Nanton, Tolon and Yendi.
The beneficiaries would be vaccinated three times and the first phase began on February 11 and ended on February 15. The second exercise will begin from March 18 to 22 and the third vaccination from September 23 to 27, 2013.
Explaining why the Central and Northern regions were chosen for the pilot programme, he said the 2010 Census showed that teenage pregnancy was rife in the Central Region, a situation which he said could lead to a lot of them having cervical cancer in future.
He said there was, therefore, the need to vaccinate the young ones before their first sexual contact.
Also the Northern Region, he explained, was chosen because the 2010 Census showed that sex was mostly delayed among young girls.
Therefore, he said the Northern Region was an ideal location to immunise the girls before they could start having sexual intercourse.
Dr Dankyira said for the HPV vaccine to work best, “it is very important for adolescents to get all three doses long before sexual activity begins.”
Research, he said, had shown that the vaccine was highly effective against the commonest HPV types that caused cancer of the cervix, saying that it was only effective when all three shots were given at the required intervals.
The MoH, he said, was supporting the exercise with GH¢600,000, while an additional GH¢300,000 would be provided during the third phase of the vaccination in September this year.
The Executive Director of Ruwide, Ms Maria Don-Chebe, said her organisation, which sourced for the support, would assist rural women to be self-sufficient through skills training and development.
Cervical cancer is caused by HPV and is passed on through sexual activity. The virus can also be passed on from an infected person to an uninfected person through oral sex.
Other causes of the cancer include starting sex early, particularly during the teenage years, having multiple sexual partners and multiple pregnancies. Apart from these, any girl or woman who has ever had sex is also at risk of getting cervical cancer.
Although the cancer often affects women who are close to the end of their reproductive years, which is between 40 and 50 years, the changes in the body that may lead to the cancer can start early, even during adolescence. This is because cervical cancer usually takes 20 years or more to develop.