The world Health organization has raised alarm over low uptake of human papillomavirus vaccine despite more than 95 percent of cancer cases resulting from HPV.
The organization say that only one out of 10 girls globally are fully vaccinated against the virus.
Studies have shown that the vaccine is effective against the virus. For instant a 2022 study carried out in Kenya found that a single dose of the typical two or three-dose vaccination was highly effective in protecting young women against the cancer-causing HPV virus.
The study conducted by SHE-KEN shows that single dose of either of two HPV vaccines provided 97.5 percent protection against new persistent infections with HPV 16 and 18, the two HPV types that cause about 70 percent of all cervical cancers,
Indeed a landmark study in 2020 in Sweden concluded that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine dramatically reduces the number of women who develop cervical cancer.
Even with this effectiveness, the uptake of the vaccine is slow as it is harbored by misconceptions.
In 2019 the ministry launched the HPV vaccination with a target to reach 800,000 girls with the jab within a period of one year with two doses of the vaccine, six months apart.
The vaccine against the cancer-causing HPV targets 10-year-old girls administered in two doses six months apart, at about 9,000 public, private and faith-based facilities countrywide.
January being the Cervical Cancer Awareness the government is intensifying it effort to conduct screening and HPV vaccination as cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women but the leading cause of cancer deaths.
The disease can take up to 10 to 15 years to progress into invasive cancer according to experts.
According to National Cancer Institute CEO Dr Alfred Karagu, the surest way to beat the disease is through regular screening adding that cervical and breast cancers contribute to almost 23 percent of all cancer-related deaths in the country.
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