Pulse
Sept 6, 2011
HPV vaccination is ‘likely’ to be extended to boys in order to boost protection from cancer and genital warts protection, Government advisers have told Pulse.
GP and expert members of the Department of Health’s advisory committee on cervical screening, which makes recommendations to the Government on cervical cancer prevention, said the cervical cancer vaccination programme, which began in 2008, should be widened to include teenage boys.
The programme offers girls aged between 12 and 13 the HPV vaccine, Cervarix, which protects against infection from HPV types 16 and 18, which can cause cervical cancer.
Professor Peter Sasieni, director of the cancer prevention trials unit at Queen Mary University of London, told Pulse the quadrivalent vaccine – which also protects against HPV types 6 and 11, which cause genital warts – is likely to be offered to boys in the future pending the results of an international randomised controlled trial.
He said: ‘The main advantage in terms of boys is the prevention of genital warts. The point of it would be to prevent some HPV-related cancers which are much rarer than cervical cancer and also to get herd immunity up.’
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