Yellow fever holiday jab ‘cuts breast cancer risk’

A £50 JAB given to thousands of British holidaymakers every year to protect against yellow fever could halve the risk of them developing breast cancer, experts have discovered.

Scientists found middle-aged women given the jab were 54 per cent less likely to get the disease in the following two years. The results were so positive that researchers have called for major international trials to verify their findings.

It raises the possibility that the vaccine, given to tourists heading to tropical destinations such as Kenya, could be a cheap and effective means of preventing thousands of cancer cases.

Breast cancer affects about 55,000 women a year in the UK and kills more than 11,000, striking one in eight women at some point in their lives.

Scientists searching for ways to prevent tumours turned to the yellowfever vaccine because studies suggested it could reduce the risk of malignant melanoma – the most dangerous type of skin cancer – by up to 70 per cent. The vaccine, which has been in use since the 1930s, is one of the cheapest and most effective travel jabs available. It has been injected into more than 600 million people worldwide, protecting them against a potentially lethal illness spread by bites from infected mosquitoes.

Experts at the University of Padova in Italy tracked more than 12,000 women who had been immunised against yellow fever, following them for over a decade to see how many developed breast cancer. They found the vaccine appeared to more than halve normal breast-cancer rates in women aged 40 to 54 two years after they were given the jab.

But among women given the jab before the age of 40 and after the age of 54, there appeared to be no protective effect. Scientists said they think this could be because women in these age groups tend to develop tumours that are more aggressive and less likely to be thwarted by the jab.

The data, published in the European Journal Of Cancer Prevention, suggests the jab could prevent ‘milder’ cancers by destroying mutant cells in the very early stage of development.

Precisely how is a mystery. But researchers said it could be suppressing inflammation that promotes tumour growth, boosting the body’s own immunity to cancerous cells or even blocking the formation of blood vessels needed to feed a tumour.

Scientists said in a report on the findings: ‘The cost of preventing a single breast-cancer case with the vaccine is a very small fraction of the cost of treating it.’

Dr Richard Berks, from charity Breast Cancer Now, said: ‘Further studies are now needed to understand whether it is the yellow-fever vaccine itself that is having this effect.’

Dr Jana Witt, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Better studies are needed to investigate whether the yellow-fever vaccine can do this.’