N.B. to offer HPV vaccination to girls

New Brunswick will offer a school-based vaccination program to protect girls from the human papillomavirus, beginning in the 2008-2009 academic year.

Health Minister Mike Murphy announced in Saint John on Tuesday that the vaccination, which is meant to serve as protection from cervical cancer, will be part of the province's yet-to-be-released health plan.

"A comprehensive provincial cervical cancer prevention and screening strategy has the potential to drastically reduce this form of cancer in the province," Murphy said.

HPV is among the most common sexually transmitted infections in Canada with estimates suggesting about 75 per cent of women will have at least one HPV infection in their lifetime.

The HPV vaccine, Gardasil, has been shown to prevent certain strains of human papillomavirus that are responsible for 70 per cent of cervical cancer cases in Canada. About 390 Canadian women die from the disease each year and another 1,350 or so are diagnosed with it, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.

"This is the first vaccine in history that can prevent cancer," Murphy said. "We want to make sure that New Brunswick women have access to this protection and will do so by adding it to our publicly-funded vaccination and immunizations programs."

Health Canada approved the use of the vaccine in July 2006 and it is now readily available from most Canadian doctors and pharmacists.

However, the approximately $360 US cost for the three-course treatment and questions about the false sense of invulnerability to sexual disease the vaccine may promote has created controversy.

During the first year of the program in New Brunswick, the vaccine will be administered to girls in Grade 7 and 8. Beginning in the 2009-2010 school year it will be given just to girls in Grade 7.

The voluntary vaccine program will cost the province about $5.8 million in its first year.

The province will also launch a cervical cancer-screening program, said Murphy, with the aim of having it available in about two years. The program will encourage women to have a Pap test done every three years.

"There is no organized provincial program to promote cervical cancer screening and there are gaps in the system for women who do not have regular access to a physician," Murphy said.

Government statistics show that about 40 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in New Brunswick each year and about 15 women die from the ailment.