Seven teams will be running a vaccination campaign in Grahamstown, vaccinating all girls in grade four, said Noluthando Bumu, programme manager of the Mother, Child and Women’s Health unit of the Department of Health (Makana Sub-District).
Seven teams will be running a vaccination campaign in Grahamstown, vaccinating all girls in grade four, said Noluthando Bumu, programme manager of the Mother, Child and Women’s Health unit of the Department of Health (Makana Sub-District).
This is part of a nationwide vaccination programme scheduled to begin on 10 March and end on 11 April.
The vaccine is for immunisation against the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a sexually transmitted infection that is known to cause cancer of the cervix.
Last year the Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, announced plans to administer the HPV vaccine in schools in 2014. In January, these plans were endorsed by President Jacob Zuma at the opening of Ngidini Primary School in the Eastern Cape.
South Africa's HPV immunisation programme follows the example of the state-funded HPV vaccine roll-out begun in Australia in 2007, targeting girls aged between 12 and 13.
Teams from health departments across the country aim to immunise girls between the ages of nine and 12 twice a year, by giving them two doses of the vaccine.
Bumu said that it was important for the girls to be immunised at a young age to ensure that the vaccine works fully before they become sexually active.
Dr Leon Snyman, a Pretoria-based gynaecologist and obstetrician, said that the vaccine was an “exciting recent development in cervical cancer prevention”.
The HPV immunisation campaign aims to reduce the statistics of the deaths of women from cervical cancer which is currently at eight deaths per day.
