KUCHING, Sept 6: The Ministry of Health must restart the nationwide human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme for 13-year-old girls in secondary schools in Malaysia next year, says Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii.
On top of that they must prioritise implementing a comprehensive catch-up vaccination programme in 2023 for girls who missed their shots from 2020 to 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr Yii, in making this statement, also welcomed the statement by Health Minister YB Khairy Jamaluddin made at the Ministry of Health Townhall session yesterday at the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH), reaffirming that cervical cancer as a disease can be eliminated.
Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer among women in Malaysia and is mainly caused by HPV.
According to Dr Yii, HPV vaccines, by preventing HPV infections, protects individuals against 90 per cent of HPV-related cancers.
“That is why a comprehensive blueprint to ensure its proper implementation of the vaccination program is a top priority and it must be clearly reflected in the upcoming Budget 2022/2023,” said Dr Yii in a statement today.
He said recently, the National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM) released a worrying statistic, where over half a million teenage girls in Malaysian secondary schools are estimated to have missed their HPV jabs due to school closures during the pandemic and diversion of funding to Covid-19 programmes.
Based on the HPV vaccination rate in previous years, at least 176,944 and 186,593 13-year-old girls would have missed their HPV shots in the disruption of the National Immunisation Programme (NIP) in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
A further 200,000 girls in this cohort are estimated to have missed out vaccinations this year, leading to at least 560,000 teenagers in Malaysian secondary schools missing out on their HPV vaccination that prevents cervical cancer.
“Based on their report, there is a reduction of inoculations across almost all state from 2020 to 2022.”
“In Sarawak, we see a reduction of successful inoculations from 30 per cent in 2020 to 12.5 per cent in 2022,” said Dr Yii who added that this year, not a single district or zone in Kedah, Penang, Perlis, Johor, and the three Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, and Labuan reported successful HPV inoculation programmes.
“These worrying statistics have to be taken seriously and thus the urgent need to restart and re-prioritise the vaccination programme on top of implementing a comprehensive catch-up plan to better protect our girls from this deadly virus.
“Such a issue also should not be in the hands of only the Federal Government or the Ministry of Health, but also on the agenda of State Governments and other Ministries such as the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, whether on a federal or state level.
“I do hope such plans will be clearly reflected both in the 2022/2023 budget and in the Health White Paper that Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin intends to table in Parliament by year end,” said Dr Yii. — DayakDaily
