Girls must get three cancer vaccine doses, says expert

IRELAND WILL have to work hard to ensure girls being offered the cervical cancer vaccine get all three doses to guarantee maximum protection against strains of the virus causing most cases of the disease, one of the co-inventors of the vaccine said yesterday.

Prof Ian Frazer said that in Australia, where human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccinations began in 2007, data from some states shows there has been about an 80 per cent uptake of all three doses among schoolgirls, but that among those aged 18 to 26, uptake of all three had been just 40 per cent after three years.

“So the lesson is,” he said, “you really have to work hard to get people to get the second and third dose . . . it will be the challenge everywhere as it is with all vaccinations to get people to come back and get the extra shots.”

Three doses are recommended over a six-month period to ensure maximum protection, Prof Frazer said, and the goal would be to have at least 90 per cent uptake of all three doses among those being vaccinated. Those who got just two doses may be protected, but it was not clear how long this would last.

He stressed the importance of a major public education campaign before vaccination began to ensure maximum uptake.

Last week, Minister for Health Mary Harney announced the HPV vaccine would be offered to first-year students in secondary schools before the summer break.

Prof Frazer, from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, said one of the two cervical cancer vaccines on the market – Gardasil – protects against 90 per cent of genital warts. Among women under 28 in Australia, there had been “a sharp decline” in cases of genital warts since HPV vaccination began.

At present, the HPV vaccine protected against only about 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer, Prof Frazer stressed, so it was complementary to cervical screening rather than a substitute for it.

He believed the HPV vaccine would reduce the incidence of oral cancers including cancer of the tonsils, which was increasing among young people practising oral sex.

Prof Frazer, in Dublin to deliver the Irish Cancer Society’s Charles Cully memorial lecture, said work was under way to find a vaccine that would prevent cervical cancer in women who had already been infected with HPV.