Children should be given HPV vaccine at primary school to catch them before they start having sex say doctors
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Children should be given HPV vaccine at primary school to catch them before they start having sex say doctors
Girls are currently offered the human papilloma virus jab at secondary school, which protects against the virus responsible for most cases of cervical cancer.
But doctors say this is already too late for some and are now demanding it is offered at primary school instead.
Delegates at the British Medical Association’s annual conference in Brighton also want boys to be routinely vaccinated to ensure ‘universal coverage’.
However, critics argue it is sending the wrong message and will encourage children to start having sex sooner.
Dr Lucy-Jane Davis, who proposed the motion, said offering the vaccination years earlier could increase uptake levels, currently at 85 percent, and protect men from some cancers.
Dr Davis, chair of the BMA Bristol division and a public health registrar, said: ‘There’s really good evidence that the vaccine works better if you catch people before they are 16, but actually what we need to do is capture them before they have any kind of sexual contact.
‘So, the ideal is to catch them before they are in that environment.
‘If we could do that at primary school then we would have a universal coverage which would a very sensible and pragmatic approach.’ Parents should not be concerned that earlier vaccination would encourage their children to have sex at a younger age and realise it will help ‘prevent something bad happening further down the line, she added.
‘You can make the argument that we shouldn’t educate about condoms and safer sex because it sends a message that you can go and have sex,’ she said.
‘That isn’t true, actually the evidence is the more that we educate the more likely people are to have safer sex, but also they are not any more likely to have sex earlier.
‘So I think it’s not an argument that holds any water.’ The BMA’s backing for a universal HPV jab comes amid growing calls for boys to be offered the same level of protection as girls.
While most commonly associated with causing cervical cancer among women, the vaccination provides herd protection to men.
But men who have sex with men are still at risk and, if exposed to some HPV strains, could go on to develop a various cancers and genital warts.
The motion – which passed overwhelmingly – called for the programme to be widened to include ‘all school age children of both sexes and administered at primary school to be more effective’.
Dr Davis, a mother-of-three, warned only vaccinating men who have sex with men is problematic.
‘There is a campaign to vaccinate men who have sex with men because we know that they are in an at-risk group. But one of things is you can’t identify that early on.
‘Because you are not going to say to somebody who is at secondary school, as a teenager: “Do you think you might have sex with a man at some point in your life?”
‘And we are living in a very different society as well, we are living in a much more sexually fluid society and I think we should prepare for that as well.’ Dr Davis said she would consider getting her two sons, aged eight and two, vaccinated, adding: ‘My personal preference is to make them safe.’ But Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, said it could send the wrong message to children.
Recent figures show one in four women in the UK first had sex before the age of 16, with a third of those having sex at 13 or 14 not using condoms.
He said: ‘Offering the HPV vaccine to both boys and girls in primary school runs the very real risk that some young people will be lulled into a false sense of security and assume that, because they have been vaccinated, they are protected against the worst effects of sexual promiscuity and can therefore engage in casual sex without consequence.
‘The surest protection against HPV and other sexually transmitted infections is not to be found in vaccines, but in keeping sexual intimacy within a lifelong mutually faithful relationship with an uninfected partner.
‘The HPV vaccine is only a damage limitation exercise at best and should not be administered in isolation from advice on how sexual abstinence and lifelong fidelity provide much greater protection from infection than any vaccine.’ HPV 16 and HPV 18 infections, which cause the majority of cervical cancers, decreased by 86 percent in women aged 16 to 21 eligible for the vaccination between 2010 and 2016.
Cases of throat and mouth cancers have increased around four-fold in the last 20 years.
Public Health England said there were a number of reasons why the vaccine was offered to girls at age 12-13.
Dr Mary Ramsay, Head of Immunisation at PHE said: ‘We know that the majority of girls are first infected with HPV after the age of 12/13, so the vaccine works as a preventative measure.
‘We also know from research before the programme came in that parents were less comfortable with their daughters being vaccinated against HPV at primary school.
‘The vaccine has also been shown to have worked well in older girls who were part of the catch up programme when the HPV vaccine was first introduced.’
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