UPDATE, DECEMBER 16, 2011: The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) has for the first time recommended that boys between the ages of 12 and 13 be immunised against the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and boys in Year 9 be given catch-up shots. PBAC has previously rejected calls for the school-based injection program to be extended to boys. The most common vaccination against some strains of HPV is Gardasil, developed in Australia. Here’s the official recommendation:
“The PBAC recommended extension of the National Immunisation Program listing of quadrivalent human papillomavirus (types 6, 11, 16, 18) (HPV) recombinant vaccine, solution for injection 0.5 mL, to include ongoing administration to males approximately twelve to thirteen years of age in a school-based program and for two catch-up cohorts for all males in the two year groups above the ongoing cohort, delivered over two years for Year 9 males, on the basis of acceptable cost effectiveness compared with female-only vaccination.”
The Government has to accept the recommendation if this is to become a reality, however. Watch this space.
Here’s our original story about why this is important news:
Your average boy might not have a cervix (right, none of them do) but that doesn’t mean boys and men shouldn’t be getting the cervical cancer vaccine.
Ongoing research into the effectiveness of the two vaccines known to prevent some strains of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) suggests men (who also carry the virus) are also at risk of some cancers and genital warts.
The details can be a little confusing, so let’s step through this slowly.
Garadsil was developed by Australian of the Year Professor Ian Frazer after years of studying HPV. It protects against four strains of HPV. HPV16 and HPV-18 are responsible for almost three quarters of all cervical cancer cases in women and most of the cases of penile, anal, vulvar and vaginal cancers (which are, in truth, relatively rare).
But it also wards against HPV-6 and 11 strains which cause almost 9 in 10 cases of genital warts. Simply, genital warts are HPV.
It probably need not be mentioned that men can get anal and penile cancers. What isn’t mentioned quite so often is that HPV-related tonsil cancers happen almost as frequently in men as the cervical cancers do in women.
There are around 400,000 cases of cervical cancer in women worldwide, around half of which result in deaths.