Bytheway...It’swrongtodenyboystheHPVjab

SHOULD boys be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV)? Many GPs say they would want their own sons to have the jab and it’s easy to see why: HPV is nasty and can lead to some particularly nasty cancers.

Yet last week, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation ( JCVI) announced that it did not think the HPV vaccination programme — which currently targets girls aged 12 to 13 — should be extended to boys.

Essentially this comes down to cost, but it’s a highly questionable decision.

There are more than 100 strains of HPV, some of which cause skin problems such as warts and verrucas; while others infect the genital and anal areas and are linked to cancers at these sites in both men and women. There is also increasing evidence that HPV is associated with cancer of the mouth and throat.

Currently we have two main vaccines: Gardasil, which protects against four strains of HPV (6 and 11, which cause genital warts, and 16 and 18, which cause about 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer), and Cervarix (which protects against types 16 and 18).

Both jabs have been proven to prevent HPV in large trials — the NHS opted for Gardasil.

Back in 2008, when the vaccination programme was introduced in the UK, there was debate about whether boys should also receive the protection, even though in some countries (Australia, for example) it was given to both sexes from the start — and the list of countries that offer the vaccine to boys continues to expand. Yet now, JCVI has said that boys here are not to be afforded the same protection, essentially because vaccinating enough girls will help protect boys and it’s also not cost effective. (This is its initial recommendation — a final decision will be made in October.)

But the maths doesn’t add up. For while the cost of extending the programme to boys is estimated at £20 million a year, this is far outweighed by the cost of treating genital warts alone (an estimated £58 million a year), quite apart from the cost (financial and human) of penile and anal cancers.

We can but hope that ministers who have the ultimate say will think of their own sons — and their position ethically — if they do not offer such vital protection.