HPV vaccination campaign to roll out in coming months – Health Minister

…as Guyana Cancer Society launched

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Saturday said that the Ministry will roll out its Human Papillomavirus (HPV) campaign in the following two months as a response to combat Cervical Cancer – Guyana’s second most prevalent cancer in women.
The Minister made this announcement at the launching of the Guyana Cancer Society at MovieTowne, East Coast Demerara (ECD).
“In the next two months or so, we want to start, at the Ministry level, to roll out HPV vaccines,” Dr Anthony said.

He stated that the Ministry had started the efforts to administer the vaccine on two occasions, but the initiative was met with poor response from the public.
“In this country, we have made two attempts to do HPV vaccination, but on both occasions, they have been unsuccessful because we’ve not been able to do it in a very comprehensible way. The first time we started it, we did it as a pilot and it really never took off, so we were not able to scale it up… When we re-attempted it again, it didn’t go very far,” the Minister admitted.

In this regard, the Minister stated that he has had discussions with the various people involved in the HPV campaign and voiced his commitment to the longevity and consistency of the campaign in Guyana.
“As I was talking with the staff who was responsible for this, I said, ‘I don’t want to hear any more about no pilot if we’re doing this, we know, in other countries where it has been done, it has worked and it has worked very well.’ We don’t need to do a pilot to tell us whether this thing is effective or not. It is worth it,” he said.
The Minister noted that once the vaccination campaign begins in the next two months, the Ministry plans on moving quickly to administer the doses.
“When we start in about two months from now, we want to move very quickly and scale so that we can cover everyone who is eligible within this age group of 9 to 14, both boys and girls.”
He further added that the HPV vaccine can eliminate cervical cancer from Guyana if administered effectively and continuously.
“If we’re able to vaccinate persons between 9 to 14, both male and female, and do it across that age cohort and continue to do that for a number of years, we can eventually eliminate cervical cancer from Guyana. And that is something we have to work towards,” he said.
With that, he mentioned that misinformation still plays a part in the encouragement of parents being willing for their children to take the vaccine. This is something he will be working on with various organisations to spread the correct pieces of information as it pertains to the pros and cons of taking the HPV vaccine.
Meanwhile, the non-governmental organisation, Guyana Cancer Society, was launched in hopes of providing assistance to patients diagnosed with cancer from the time they are diagnosed to the end of their cancer therapy.
The organisation will also provide counselling, including family counselling; financial, such as help with surgery or daily medical needs; medical intervention; legal aid reference; and other areas that pertain to assisting diagnosed patients.
The NGO seeks to educate the general public about cancer and how to avoid a positive screening; conduct wellness tests to determine the physical health of a person being treated; distribute foodstuff and other essential items to the general population, and teach communities about the importance of living in a clean and sustainable environment.
President of the organisation, Sharir Chan said that he has partnered with the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana, and the US Embassy to Guyana to bring the organisation to fruition. (G2)