AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE government has asked parents and guardians with girls aged 14 to ensure that they take their children who are yet to receive Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), vaccine and those who are yet to complete vaccination to avail them to medical facilities.
Minister of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Ummy Mwalimu said in parliament yesterday that the government was giving assurance to all people that vaccination services were available at all health facilities for free.
“People should continue with these services at any time because vaccination is the right of every child in this country,’’ she said.
The minister was responding to a question by Mwantumu Dau Haji (Special Seats- CCM) who wanted to know the progress on HPV vaccine that was recently introduced by the government.
According to the minister, the government introduced HPV vaccine in April 2018 for girls between nine and 14 years and that during that period, 643,383 girls aged 14 who were targeted had received the vaccine on time, adding that during 2019 the targeted girls were 685,580.
“In 2018, we introduced the vaccine and about 383,683 received the service during the first dose an equivalent of 60 per cent of the set target which was 643,838 and during the second dose, 128,021 were reached, which is equal to 33per cent of the set target,’’ she said.
Last year, the minister said, about 533,615 girls (78per cent) received the vaccine during the first dose and that on the second dose about 334,014 equal to 63per cent were reached.
The government introduced HPV vaccine as part of the routine immunisation programme targeting girls aged 14 to protect them against cervical cancer.
Statistics show that Tanzania is among the African countries with the highest cases of cervical cancer with about 50,000 women contracting the disease annually.
Statistics from Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI), show that cervical cancer accounts for 36 per cent of all cancer patients in the country, followed by breast cancer (12.9 per cent), cancer of the oesophagus (9.8 per cent) and Kaposis Sarcoma (9.3 per cent).
Cervical cancer has multiple risk factors such as early marriage, multiple sexual partners, multi-parity and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/Aids infection, tobacco use, vitamins deficiency and HPV infection.
