Children & Young People Now
Sexual health clinicians are lobbying the government to fund a vaccine that protects against both genital warts and cervical cancer.
By Janaki Mahadevan
Children & Young People Now
16 February 2011
Currently, the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine that is administered to girls aged 12 to 14 only protects against cervical cancer.
Following a survey of sexual health clinicians, including more than 400 doctors and more than 100 nurses, the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) found that 93 per cent of practitioners would advise their friends or family to use Gardasil, a form of the vaccine that provides protection against both conditions.
“It’s obviously important that young women should be protected against cervical cancer, but parliamentarians need to have all the facts about both HPV vaccines, so we can have a proper debate about which drug represents the best value for money for the health service over the long term,” said Dr Keith Radcliffe, BASHH president. “If the government had purchased Gardasil back in 2008, like almost all other developed countries did at the time, today we could be well on the way to eradicating genital warts. Instead, over the past three years, cases of genital warts continue to consume valuable resources in our clinics.”
The coalition government is set to review the decision made by Labour in 2008 on the vaccine.
BASHH is now going to take the results of its survey to parliament, to highlight to MPs clinicians’ support for an HPV vaccine that tackles both cervical cancer and genital warts, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the UK.
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