Local representatives have welcomed the announcement by the Minister for Health for a plan to vaccinate 12-year-old girls in Limerick and across Ireland against cervical cancer from September 2009.

Minister’s proposal is a bid to significantly reduce overall rates of cervical cancer.

Mary Harney said last week that she has requested that the HSE prepare and submit a plan for the introduction of a HPV vaccination programme after expert advice suggested that “a universal, high uptake, vaccination programme for young girls, in conjunction with population based cervical screening, could significantly reduce overall cervical cancer rates”.

She added that she intends “to seek Government approval for the programme and for the required funding in the autumn based on the implementation of a plan that can be shown to be cost-effective, in terms of delivery costs and uptake rates”.

A high rate of uptake will also be required for the programme to go ahead.

Limerick East Labour deputy and spokesperson on health, Jan O'Sullivan, welcomed the announcement but urged the minister to rethink the decision not to offer a catch up programme for the vaccine for 13 to 15 year olds due to “the need to prioritise in relation to the budget”.

“This must be put in perspective, it will cost an additional €30m to include this age group, that is the same amount of money spent by the HSE during 2007 on legal fees,” she said.

Fine Gael councillor, Jim Long, also wrote to and lobbied the minister last year to encourage the introduction of the vaccine emphasising that Irish women fare worse than many European and global counterparts in terms of cervical cancer deaths.

Cervical cancer is the eighth most frequently diagnosed cancer in women in Ireland and is caused by the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), which is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections and develops into cancer in some cases.

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) estimated in a recently published report that the vaccine scheme for 12-year-olds would cost €9.7 million a year to administer.

There are two vaccines are licensed in Ireland to prevent HPV infections—GardasilTM and CervarixTM.

The vaccines—given as a course of three injections over a six-month period and currently available privately at an average cost of €600—are administered in schemes in over 17 European countries, Canada and Australia among others.

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