The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has promised that over 90 per cent of young girls in the country, aged 9 to 14 will receive the Human Papillomavirus vaccine against cervical cancer by December this year.
To this end, the second phase of the HPV vaccination campaign will kick off on Monday, May 27, in the SouthWest states of Ondo, Ekiti and Oyo, as well as in Edo.
Speaking at a two-day media dialogue entitled “Combating The Most Preventable Form Of Deadly Cancer Affecting Women and Girls Through Vaccination”, the UNICEF health specialist at the Lagos field office, Dr Ijeoma Agbo, said that the first phase, initiated last year in Ogun, Lagos, Osun, and some northern states, achieved over a 50 percent success rate.
Agbo pointed out that there was need for collaborative efforts among stakeholders against HPV infection.
She explained that HPV is a viral infection of the reproductive tract that accounts for 95 per cent of cervical cancer cases.
Agbo, attributed the high burden of cervical cancer to poor access to HPV vaccination services, poor screening and treatment as well as low awareness among others.
She appealed to parents and guidance to make their teenage girls available for vaccination.
According to her “We are hoping to achieve at least 90 per cent vaccination target when it comes to HPV vaccination.
“If you look at the country, we will say we did well because if you look at the coverage, it is about 50-something per cent, but in the SouthWest we did not do as well as we would have hoped.
“But for states in the North, some did as high as 70 per cent, so that shows that in the South we have a lot of work to do.
“We are introducing in the remaining three Southwest states and Edo.
“These states are in close proximity to Lagos, Ogun and Osun which we introduced earlier and we can’t take it for granted.
“Whatever issues we have had might also happen in these states and that is why we are coming out earlier to look at the successes and the issues and see how we can use that to improve the introduction in other states and also in the states that we have introduced going forward.
“To the parents, we need their support, UNICEF has a mandate which is that every child and for this we are talking about our girls should live to survive thrive and fulfil their full potential in life.
” We do not want any girl in future to come down with cervical cancer and that is why this laudable initiative has been brought to the country”.
Agbo said the HPV vaccine roll-out was geared towards eliminating cervical cancer in the country, and assured that the vaccine is safe, effective, and free.
According to her there was an urgent need for all stakeholders to come together to sensitise Nigerians to its importance.
The health specialist said, “Our girls are important to us and every girl has a right to life and no one should die from preventable causes of cervical cancer.
“So we are hoping that in the future, we have a country that is devoid of cervical cancer.”
She, however, decried the misinformation being spread about the vaccine, noting that the World Health Organisation carried out several tests and trials before a vaccine was introduced.
Agbo explained that the first phase of the vaccine was introduced in October 2023 in 16 states, adding that the second phase would begin on May 27, 2024, and would cover the remaining 24 states.
She urged parents, teachers, principals, and other stakeholders to join forces with the government, UNICEF, and other partners to ensure that girls within the age range are given the vaccine.
“With all hands on deck, we can achieve the 2030 elimination target. In the first round, we introduced it in three states, Lagos, Ogun, and Osun, but we didn’t do as well as we had hoped.
“We had some other states in the North and East that did much better and even got as far as 70-80 per cent. We found out that what caused this was the distrust in the system and a lot of misinformation which went around even on social media”
“It is never too late, while we hope that we can improve in the states that we have introduced them to and have now routinised it, in the new states we are going to, we are taking the lessons from those states looking at the strengths and challenges from the strategies we had put in place.
“With this, we are coming together with our communities to develop strategies that would help us in scaling up and the introduction so we can meet our target.”
Also, speaking, the Programme Manager of UNICEF, Muhammad Okorie, said, the media dialogue was an opportunity to sensitise the public about the advantages of proven global interventions in the prevention of HPV through vaccination.
The Immunisation Programme Coordinator of the Lagos State Primary Health Care Board, Dr Adetola Akinpelu, said that since the start of the vaccine rollout in October last year, of the 1.1 million girls targeted, 478,528 of them have been vaccinated in the state.
Akinpelu noted that the spread of rumours, inadequate funding, and the use of scientific language were challenges encountered at the early stages.
According to him “We were able to engage with some of these schools during the assemblies and Parent Teacher Association meetings and we got good responses from them. We had TV, radio, and social media campaigns.
