Skipping HPV Vaccine Could Have Devastating Consequences

Cancer advocates are voicing strong concern tonight: pulling HPV vaccines from Catholic schools could cost lives. The Ministry of Health says the vaccine, just twenty dollars, can prevent cervical cancer and other HPV-related diseases. Without it, families may face bills of up to fifty thousand dollars trying to treat advanced cancer. And the warning isn’t theoretical. Dr. Natalia Beer points to recent oncology clinic data that highlights just how serious the risk already is. The science is clear: girls who miss the HPV vaccine face a much higher chance of developing cervical cancer later in life and the consequences can be devastating.

 

Dr. Natalia Beer, Technical Advisor, Minister of Health & Wellness

“We have to acknowledge that cervical cancer and these other HPV-related cancer, they can be prevented with the vaccine. You can prevent it with twenty dollars. Women that get cervical cancer advanced stage, they have – the family have to invest between forty to fifty thousand Belize dollars to receive treatment at that stage, and maybe they’re not even able to save the woman life after that great investment, no? And that is not available to all families And just to share with you all, we had an oncology clinic in the month of April, and we had nineteen women with cervical cancer that were seen, evaluated by a specialist, and a few of them got surgery. And out of these nineteen women that had cervical cancer, only one was in age of receiving the HPV vaccine when we look at the year of introduction of the vaccine, but she was not vaccinated. And then the other eighteen, they were not age-eligible for the vaccine based on the year of introduction. I can put myself and compare to a young girl that got the vaccine this year earlier. Who have greater risk to get cervical cancer? Me. And why? Because I did not get HPV vaccine. And that girl, she will be protected from HPV vaccine in the case and especially if they get the vaccine before exposing themselves to the virus. So yes, low vaccination coverage is equal to higher incidence of morbidity and mortality due to cervical cancer, a vaccine-preventable cancer.”

 

According to the Ministry of Health and Wellness, forty-six thousand one hundred doses of the HPV vaccines have been administered in primary schools since the campaign was launched in 2016.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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