“A blow will work”: Pakistan begins the deployment of the vaccine against HPV to millions of girls | Global health

TThe questions come quickly and furious: “Why only girls?”, “Will this affect her rules?”, “Can this cause infertility?”, “Is it halal?” Inside the Sports Airy Sports Hall of the Khatoon-E-Pakistan Government School, the students of their blue and crunchy white uniforms whispered with each other, while their parents listen carefully to health officials who take the session.

Although there are fathers in the chairs arranged for the occasion, the majority are mothers. The bases are ahead of the first deployment of Pakistan at the national level of the human vaccination campaign of the papillomavirus (HPV).

The figures are ambitious: more than 13 million girls aged nine at 14 should receive the vaccine in an initiative aimed at protecting them from cervical cancer, a disease often with few symptoms that kills more than 3,000 women in Pakistan each year.

“The concerns are the same wherever we go,” said Dr. Azra Ahsan, president of Aman, one of the many organizations working with the government in a 12 -day campaign to raise awareness of HPV and its vaccine.

In the Sindh province, the Ahsan team worked with parents, students, teachers and health workers, many of which share similar fears. “Fertility is the most persistent concern,” she says, and disinformation on vaccines abounds.

However, Mehrunissa Asghar, 40, a vaccinator working with aid, an organization based in the Sindh that works in maternal and child health, said that the acceptance of the vaccine has improved from the Pandemic COVVI-19. “I think our work will be much easier this time,” she says.

His colleague, Yaqoobuddin Lanjar, is less optimistic. “This is our first time, and with so little conscience, we sail on an unexplored territory,” he said. As a male vaccinator, he will not be part of the campaign – the 49,000 government health workers trained for this are women.

Health officials and defenders hope that the deployment of free vaccine will save not only lives, but will also help break the silence surrounding the disease and will be passionate about the dissipation of suspicions on vaccines.

“As a mother to another, I urge you to have your daughters vaccinated from this terrible cancer, which often does not become again until it is too late and that the woman dies an agonizing death,” said Dr. Azra Fazal Pechuho, provincial minister of health and well-being of the Sindh population.

AFSHAN BHURGRI, 59, a survivor of cervical cancer, knows how dangerous silence can be dangerous. “I would only like what I have experienced on anyone,” she said.

More than a decade ago, Bhurgri underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, which left it to physically, emotionally and financially.

“The first thing I did after recovering was that my youngest daughter vacci. At the time, it took three expensive doses. Today, only one blow will work, ”explains Bhurgri. “And it’s free.”

In the first phase, from next week, 13 million girls from Punjab, Sindh, the territory of the capital of Islamabad and the cashmere administered by Pakistan, will receive a single dose of the vaccine against the Chinese manufacturing HPV, Cecolin.

Almost 50% of girls in the target age group do not attend school, so temporary vaccination centers have been created in neighborhoods to ensure that they can also receive the vaccine.

It will then be available in centers managed by the government as part of the expanded immunization program, which already provides free vaccines for avoidable diseases, including tuberculosis, typhoid, polio and measles.

In the future, the government will co-finance the program with GAVI, Vaccine Alliance, supported by local civil society groups and global partners, including the World Health Organization, UNICEF and JHPIEGO, a reproductive health organization based in the United States, as part of its commitment to vaccinating 90% of girls by 2030, to eliminate cervical cancer.

Globally, it is the fourth most common cancer among women, but ranks third in Pakistan, after breast and ovary cancers, with more than 5,000 new cases reported per year, 64% of which are fatal.

Pechuho attributes the high mortality rate to delayed diagnoses and limited access to screening. Vaccination is only part of the solution.

Ahsan says: “The strengthening of screening and treatment is just as critical”, because awareness of screening – and the disease itself – remains weak. A 2021 study of 384 patients at the Private University Hospital Aga Khan in Karachi revealed that 61% had heard of cervical cancer and 47% were aware of smear, only 25% knew that a vaccine existed.

Despite the work in health care, Asghar only learned about cervical cancer by chance after seeing the HPV listed on the immunization card of a child from a private hospital. “I had never heard of this vaccine, so I asked the doctors and they told me about cancer and the price of the price of the price of the price [the vaccine] formerly.

Her three daughters, aged 16, 18 and 21, are too old to benefit from it.

Although Bhurgri was aware of cervical cancer and opted for regular projections, she blamed doctors who remained ignorant of her condition, despite clear signs. “I was only sent for an HPV test when it was too late,” she said.