Vaccination key to prevent cervical cancer in girls

NEW DELHI: Vaccinating young girls is the key to eliminating cervical cancer—one of the leading cancers in Indian women. However, Delhi government’s vaccination

NEW DELHI: Vaccinating young girls is the key to eliminating cervical cancer—one of the leading cancers in Indian women. However, Delhi government’s vaccination drive is yet to take off.

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The first phase of the programme, to cover around one lakh girls in city’s public schools, was to start in July-August this year, but it is still stuck at the preparatory stages .“There area few issues such as obtaining an informed consent from all parents as the girls would be minors; verifying the adverse effects on each girl and creating a foolproof protocol so that no girl is missed out,” said an official from the health department, requesting anonymity.

An estimated one lakh new cases of cervical cancer, mainly caused by Human Papilloma virus (HPV) infection, are expected to be reported from the country in 2016 alone, shows the National Cancer Registry.

Drawing parallels from her own country, Tobeka Madiba-Zuma, the first lady of the Republic of South Africa, who is in Delhi to promote cervical cancer awareness, also emphasised on the need to vaccinate girls and screen women.

“Like India, we also have a huge cervical cancer burden, and there is limited access to treatment or screening services, especially for women in the rural area ,” she said.

Tobeka was talking on the sidelines of a three-day conference in the city, titled Cervical Cancer Prevention and Control in India and Beyond, A Comprehensive Approach Towards Elimination.

“We realised the importance of vaccinating young girls before they become sexually active to provide them protection against HPV infection, which is why in 2014 our department of health and department of education together successfully rolled out the vaccination programme ,” she said.

Though there was resentment from parents against getting their girls vaccinated, the government put in extra efforts by way of involving faith-based organisations, community members etc.

“Increasing teenage pregnancies was a sign that our kids were getting sexually active at a young age, which meant there’s a need to spread awareness.”