NEW DELHI: The government on Saturday said that they are yet to take a decision on the roll out of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign against cervical cancer in the country.
Cervical cancer, which is the second most common cancer in India, is a preventable and curable disease if detected early and treated adequately.
According to a Union health ministry statement, reports speculating that the government will launch an HPV vaccination campaign in the second quarter of year 2024 to target girls in the 9-14 years age group “are not true.” “The Union health ministry is yet to take a decision on the roll out of HPV vaccine in the country,” the statement said.
The ministry added that they are closely monitoring the incidences of cervical cancer cases and are in regular touch with states and various health departments regarding this. According to estimates, cervical cancer contributes to approximately 6-29 per cent of all cancers in women.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) regional director for South East Asia, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, said in November last year that India has introduced HPV vaccination to target cervical cancer at the sub-national level in Sikkim and is planning to increase the scope in other states. The WHO launched the global strategy for elimination of cervical cancer in November 2020.
According to the Global Cancer Observatory 2020, the South East Asia Region accounted for a substantial portion of the global cervical cancer burden, with 2,00,000 new cases (32% of the global burden) and 1,00,000 deaths (34% of global deaths).
The urgent need for a vaccine was felt to eliminate cervical cancer, which kills one woman every eight minutes in the country, as India accounts for about a fifth of the global burden, with 1.23 lakh cases and around 67,000 deaths per year, as per the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Although HPV vaccination has been licensed for use in India since 2008, it is yet to be included in the national immunisation programme. The primary reason for this was a controversy ignited after the death of seven girls who were allegedly administered HPV vaccination by an international non-profit organisation, PATH. Though subsequent investigations concluded that the deaths were not linked to the vaccination, the debate led to the development of more stringent standards for clinical trials in India.
