Following a recent change in the criteria, the Ministry of Health has announced that the Human Papilloma-virus (HPV) vaccine can now be administered to women up to 45 years of age.
“Previously we were only offering these vaccines for persons, both male and female, nine to 15 years of age. But the new guidelines published by all the reputable organisations dealing with cervical cancer would have advised that we could go beyond 15 years of age. And, that is why we have now updated our schedule to include persons beyond 15 years of age, who can access the vaccines. Previously a woman who was 26 years of age could not have had access to these vaccines,” Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony said in a recent interview with the Department of Public Information (DPI).
According to a DPI report on Thursday, Anthony said that the new policy was put in place following a recent change in the criteria for the HPV vaccine.
Anthony noted that three doses of the vaccine are required to be administered to women ages 19 to 45 while persons with compromised immune systems are given a similar regime, the report added.
HPV, according to the DPI report, is one of the most common sexually-transmitted infections and is known to cause several types of cancers.
“So, you have cervical cancers, that HPV can cause, you have anal cancers and you have oral cancers. So, one way of preventing persons later in life from getting these cancers is to make sure that they are vaccinated,” DPI quoted Anthony saying.
Meanwhile, the report noted that cervical cancer is the second most prevalent cancer among women in Guyana. It said the ministry currently has a vaccine campaign being run simultaneously alongside the COVID-19 vaccination programme.
“We can prevent this by ensuring that all women in Guyana get vaccinated, so that’s one of the reasons why we have this campaign to educate, especially young people, about HPV vaccination, what it can do, what it can prevent, and once persons get it, would prevent them from getting these types of cancers,” Anthony explained to the DPI.
The HPV vaccine arrived here in 2011 and it was first launched by the then Ministry of Public Health in 2012. It was relaunched in 2016 under the now Ministry of Health in collaboration with Merck, Sharp and Dhome (MSD).
