Give all boys anti-cancer vaccine too, ministers told
‘Imperative the advice is accepted’
HUNDREDS of thousands of teenage boys are expected to be given the HPV vaccine to help protect them from cancer after Government advisers gave the jab their approval.
For the past decade all schoolgirls have been given the vaccine at the age of 12 or 13 to ward off cervical cancer, a step that is thought to save 500 lives a year.
Yesterday the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advised that the programme be extended to boys at the same age.
Health minister Steve Brine indicated the Government would react quickly to the recommendation. ‘Be assured I am looking at the advice carefully and will announce our decision very soon,’ he said.
HPV – or the human papillomavirus – causes around 2,500 cases of cancer in men each year and around 650 deaths, mainly from cancers of the throat and mouth.
The JCVI had previously rejected calls to include boys in the programme on grounds of cost.
But it yesterday announced it had recalculated the economic impact and advised that a combined vaccination programme would be cost-effective.
It said: ‘If considering a cost-effectiveness analysis where a combined girls’ and boys’ programme is compared to no vaccination, genderneutral HPV vaccination is highly likely to be cost-effective.’
The HPV virus is spread through sexual contact, so it is hoped that vaccinating boys will also protect more girls from cancer.
Peter Baker, director of campaign group HPV Action, said: ‘The JCVI’s advice is very welcome news for boys and their parents. It will also benefit those girls who, for whatever reason, have not been vaccinated against HPV.
‘We have waited a very long time for this announcement and it is now imperative that ministers accept the JCVI’s advice without delay so that no more boys are left at risk.’
Australia, Canada and the US have already introduced HPV vaccination for boys. The vaccine is given in the early teens in order to establish an immune response well before they become sexually active.
When the vaccine was introduced for girls in 2008 it provoked some controversy, because critics thought it might encourage risky sexual behaviour. But those criticisms have largely fallen away as evidence has grown about the effectiveness of the vaccine in warding off cancer.
Other concerns were raised about side-effects of the vaccination, after parents claimed it had caused two rare health syndromes – complex regional pain syndrome, a chronic pain condition affecting the limbs, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or PoTS, a condition which causes abnormal heart rate.
But an investigation by the European Medicines Agency in 2015 concluded the HPV vaccine was not the cause of these conditions and declared the jab to be safe.
Professor Kevin Harrington, of the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said last night: ‘The recommendation recognises the fact that this virus is the cause of many different tumours in both women and men and I believe that HPV vaccination will have a major impact on the incidence of HPV-related cancers in the future.’