Mexican fifth-grade girls to get HPV vaccinations

MEXICO CITY – Mexico on Wednesday launched a massive program to vaccinate fifth-grade girls against human papillomavirus, making it one of the few nations in the world with a universal campaign against the sexually transmitted virus.

One million schoolgirls ages 11 or 12 will receive the HPV vaccination this week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said. Another 200,000 girls who aren’t in school also will be given the vaccine.

HPV is the world’s most common sexually transmitted infection and causes cervical cancer, a disease that killed an estimated 4,000 Mexican women a year, Calderon said.

Mexico becomes one of the few countries in the world to follow in the footsteps of Greece, which in 2007 made the HPV vaccination mandatory for girls entering seventh grade.

Calderon, who leaves office Dec. 1, was emphatic that the HPV vaccination is safe for girls. A national laboratory will examine all imported vaccine.

“I tell you with certainty and confidence that it is convenient, healthy and very important for every girl to receive this human papillomavirus vaccine,” he said.

Patricia Volkow Fernandez, an infectious disease and cancer specialist at Mexico’s National Cancer Institute, said that more than 100,000 women have died of cervical cancers in the past quarter-century, making it the No. 2 most common cancer among women in Mexico.

Administering the vaccine to schoolgirls, she said, is a way to sidestep language, cultural and social barriers that make rural women unlikely to accept pelvic exams to detect cervical cancer in its early stages.

While there are more than 100 subtypes of human papillomavirus, the vaccine administered in Mexico is effective against subtypes 16 and 18, which cause 70 percent of the cervical cancers in the nation, she said.

All fifth-grade girls will be given an initial shot, then a second shot six months later, she said. A third and final dose will be given to girls in ninth grade.