Borneo Post Online
Borneo
Posted on February 11, 2011, Friday
KUCHING: Teenage girls who were given consent forms from their school for the cervical cancer HPV (Human Papillomavirus) immunisation must ensure that the forms are signed by their parents or guardians and returned to the school so that they get the immunisation.
One of the problems faced by schools in getting these students immunised is that these consent letters were not signed by the parents.
Some parents actually did not give permission for their daughters to receive the immunisation because they were not aware of the importance of the immunisation, said Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department Datin Fatimah Abdullah.
“The HPV immunisation is important because of all the women dying of cancer, six per cent is from cervical cancer in this country. Cervical cancer also causes premature deaths among women,” said Fatimah at the launch of the state-level HPV immunisation campaign at SMK Bandar Semariang yesterday.
Therefore, students must explain to their parents on the importance of the immunisation.
They can also get their parents to call the school for further clarification on the matter, but most importantly, they must not forget to tell their parents, she said.
Since the interrelationship between HPV and cervical cancer was discovered, prevention and cervical cancer control programmes were held, including giving HPV immunisation to teenagers aged between 12 and 26 years old, apart from Pap Smear screening among adult females.
To-date, over 30 countries in the world have approved the HPV immunisation for teenage girls.
United States, Germany, New Zealand, Australia and United Kingdom are among countries that provide HPV immunisation to girls up to 26 years old.
In Malaysia, the free programme was implemented last year at several states in West Malaysia and only started in Sarawak on Jan 17.
Leave a Reply