Each year in Ireland around 250 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer. Recently, Health Minister James Reilly announced that there would be an extension of the cervical cancer vaccination (CCV) programme which will begin in September of this year. In a statement issued about the extension of the programme, Minister Reilly maintained that “the wonder of a vaccine that can prevent cancer cannot be underestimated and the great opportunity and protection it confers should not be missed”.
Dr Brenda Corcoran, Head of the HSE National Immunisation Office, stated that cervical cancer is the most common cancer seen in Irish women aged between 15 and 44. “HPV, or Human Papillomavirus, is proven to cause cervical cancer. About 80 per cent of people will have a HPV infection during their lifetime,” she said. Dr Corcoran advised that the HPV vaccine is credited with saving approximately 60 lives each year in the country. Of the 250 cases diagnosed here each year, some 80 of these are fatal.
“The HPV vaccine will prevent at least 70 per cent of these cases,” she said. Come September, the “catchup” programme will be launched in schools across the country to ensure all girls in sixth year will be able to avail of the vaccine, as well as girls in first year of secondary school. The HSE has advised that it is currently making “necessary arrangements” so all girls in the relevant years who wish to receive the vaccine can do so, free of charge. Speaking to IMN, the HSE said that the catch-up programme will be repeated for girls in sixth year in September 2012 and in 2013. From September 2014, the CCV programme will seek to target all girls in first year of second level schools as all other girls will have already been offered the vaccine.
According to the HSE, the majority of girls will be vaccinated at school by HSE immunisation teams, while some will be invited to attend a HSE clinic to receive the vaccine. The Executive told IMN that the CCV programme will cost around €2.5 million, which comes out of the existing HSE budget for immunisation campaigns. The issue of providing a wider distribution of the vaccine is a foremost priority for Minister Reilly. While he stated he is “satisfied that the planned extension of the scheme will save many lives over the coming years, protecting our people from the scourge of cancer”, Minister Reilly also appealed to mothers who are concerned about any aspects of the vaccine to discuss it with primary care professionals; pharmacists, public health nurses, and their GP. Although the target uptake of 80 per cent has been reached in the relevant groups in certain parts of the country, the Minister expressed hope that greater numbers would take advantage of the health protection provided by the vaccine.
Speaking to IMN, public health specialist Dr Paula Gilvarry advised that there are many issues concerning the distribution of the vaccine. She said that a lot more education is needed both before and during the vaccination programme. “We need to target both the children and their parents. There is a very comprehensive information leaflet which is available and the parents need to read this and pass the information on to children. And if the parents have any concern, we need to allay their fears,” she said. Furthermore, she added that a round of three vaccinations per child brings added pressures. “You’ll find the parent brings the child for the first two vaccines and forgets about the third. It might take two or three calls to her to get her to come into the GP,” Dr Gilvarry said, adding there are not enough resources to spend time following up in these cases.
“There should be education for parents and children and maybe there should be a schools programme.” She emphasised that the vaccination programme in Ireland is short on resources. “It’s a continual catch-up and we are continually under-resourced,” she said. Dr Gilvarry told IMN that every area in the country has sent a template to the HSE looking for extra resources in order to keep up with the vaccine administration programme. In visiting schools as part of the CCV programme, Dr Gilvarry said the immunisation teams come across students who are absent. In these cases, they are sent an invitation to a clinic. However, she stressed that “we haven’t the resources to phone these students and ask them why they didn’t come and ‘can we organise something for you?’,” she said. “It is measures like this that bring up the final 10 per cent uptake.”
Dr Gilvarry reiterated to IMN the need for a dedicated immunisation team in every part of the country. “We’re talking about a clinical lead as well as administrative support,” she said. Dr Corcoran noted that all parents of girls who are getting the vaccine in September will receive a detailed information booklet and consent form from the HSE, which will be sent from their daughter’s school before the vaccinations begin. Furthermore, she revealed that figures from the programme that took place earlier this year show very high uptakes for the three doses of the vaccine given to first and second years this year. “Many parts of the country have achieved the target uptake of over 80 per cent. This is a great credit to the work of the HSE vaccination teams,” she said.
