Cork GP: HPV vaccine ‘a game changer’ in cutting cancer rate

A CORK GP has hailed the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine as a “game changer” in reducing the rate of cervical cancer in Ireland, and has encouraged the continued uptake of the jab.

Dr Mary Favier, of Parklands Surgery on the Commons Rd in Blackpool, was speaking this month in what marks Cervical Cancer Awareness Month.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly recently announced that Ireland is on target to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040.

The WHO defines the elimination of cervical cancer as fewer than four cases per 100,000 women.

Speaking in relation to this, Dr Favier said a “combination” of factors has led to a reduction in the rates of cervical cancer.

“It’s effectiveness of the vaccine and it’s vigilance then around cervical screening, and people attending to get early lesions treated, but it’s the vaccine [that] is the game changer,” she told The Echo.

As part of the HPV vaccination programme in schools, the vaccine has been offered to girls in their first year of secondary school since 2010.

This is because the most common cancer caused by the HPV virus is cervical cancer.

Since September 2019, boys have also been offered the HPV vaccine.

This is because HPV can cause cancers and genital warts in boys also.

The rollout of the vaccines to boys and men, Dr Favier said, “could potentially bring the rates really down, because obviously it’s a sexually transmitted virus — substantially — and so a person can move it from one to the other”.

“It’s a virus that sits in your system for many, many, many years, and so it can activate when you are with a different sexual partner — it doesn’t mean that you got it from the one you are sleeping with now.

“Most people, if they’re going to get infected, get infected early.

“And it’s estimated that in a population that’s not vaccinated, up to 60% of them can have the HPV infection and not know it.

“It’s not really understood why some people get cancer from it and others don’t, but it’s a very, very common virus.

“So the vaccine is very effective in dampening down our response to the virus.”

However, she stressed that — while the vaccine has been transformative on Ireland’s road to the elimination of cervical cancer — cervical screenings are still very important.

“The HPV vaccine is excellent, but it won’t potentially prevent every cervical cancer,” she said.

“Some cervical cancers are caused by different strains of the virus, and it’s not possible to vaccinate against every single one of them.

“But the main ones are covered in the vaccine, and so we should be able to eliminate almost all of them, but then we still need to keep screening.”