Mauritius to extend HPV vaccination to boys aged 9 to 15 years old
Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - The Health authorities in Mauritius announced on Monday that for the first time the national Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccination campaign, will target not only girls but also boys aged 9 to 15 years old.
The Health and Wellness Minister, Kailesh Jagutpal, said that HPV was commonly the main cause of cervical cancer in women and penile cancer in men, and might as well cause head, neck and anus cancers both in women and men.
According to him, HPV vaccination was part of the National Cancer Control Programme 2022-2025 and had proved to be very effective in reducing the risk of HPV-related cancers.
“The national HPV vaccination programme has so far touched more than 88,000 girls who have been vaccinated since 2016 in both public and private schools for nine-year-old girls,” the Minister said.
He added that this vaccine is a bivalent HPV directed against two strands of HPV most associated with cervical cancer namely types 16 and 18.
The Minister also announced that a nonavalent vaccine would soon be introduced in the country to provide additional protection against HPV for both boys and girls.
He indicated that the nonavalent vaccine protects against nine types of cancers and Sexually Transmissible Diseases (STDs) namely HPV types 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52 and 58.
Moreover, the Minister encouraged parents to have their sons and daughters vaccinated to protect them against developing cancer at a later stage of their life.
On that score, he urged the staff of the Ministry to seize the opportunity of the training programme to significantly obtain more comprehensive knowledge on HPV so that they would successfully transmit the relevant information to parents.
For her part, the WHO Representative in Mauritius, Dr Anne Marie Ancia, pointed out that the vaccination of young boys and girls against HPV would not only contribute in the decrease of the incidence and prevalence of another communicable disease, but also in the elimination of cervical cancer.
She pointed out that it is now known that cervical cancer can be eliminated, as 99% of cases are the results of infection by sexually transmitted pathogens, the HPV, against which there is a vaccine.
-0- PANA NA/MA 16Jan2023
