Cervical cancer vaccine to be rolled out

 By EUNAR NOREEN KARATU

THE human papilloma virus (HPV) has been recognised as a cause of cervical cancer, a doctors says.

Human papilloma virus is an infection that causes warts in various parts of the body and is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI).

Health Department technical adviser Dr Edward Waramin told the media in Port Moresby last Friday that a HPV vaccine pilot project would be carried out in the National Capital District for girls between the ages of nine and 15, depending on when the vaccines arrived in the country.

“The vaccines are quite expensive. We will start depending on when the vaccines arrive in the country,” he said. 

Waramin said the Government decided to get on board and vaccinate the teenage population.

“The Health Department has a plan that we want to vaccinate the whole of the country, but before we do that we need to do a demonstration, like a pilot project which will inform us the logistics and the costing on how we will roll out the project,” he said.

“We have planned to start vaccinating those girls in NCD around the end of April, if not early May.”

Waramin said PNG fell into a category that was described as been eligible for Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) support.

“GAVI is a global alliance of nations that has pulled their resources to purchase vaccines for developing or middle income countries,” he said. PNG used to be classified as one of those developing or middle income countries until we recently graduated out.

“For us to purchase the vaccines ourselves, it’s going to be quite expensive,” he said. 

“We need the support of GAVI which is why we are working together with our World Health Organisation and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund  partners to meet those requirements and part of the requirement requires us to do a pilot project.”