Pune’s BJ Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital will on Tuesday launch an ambitious vaccination campaign by vaccinating graduating MBBS (girls) students against human papilloma virus (HPV), the most common viral infection of the reproductive tract.
“Prevention is better than cure,” said Dr Eknath Pawar, dean of the hospital, adding that it was the first time in Maharashtra that such a large-scale vaccination of students had taken place.
In view of the problem of HPV infection in the country, a vaccination campaign has been started for all female students up to the age of 26 years. “This vaccination for MBBS, Nursing and postgraduate students will be only for those studying in our institute. The vaccination program is not mandatory, but we are encouraging our students (girls initially) to get vaccinated at 0, 2 and 6 months,” said Dr Pawar.
Dr Muralidhar Tambe, head of community medicine department at BJ Medical College, said that this is a very important measure to prevent cervical cancer.
The vaccine is purchased at a discounted price and will be provided free of cost to students. Initially 1000 students (daughters) will be vaccinated. A total of 3,000 doses will be procured from Serum Institute of India.
Burden of cervical cancer
HPV is the most common viral infection of the reproductive tract; Causes various conditions in men and women, such as genital warts, rectal cancer, vaginal cancer, penile cancer, oro-pharyngeal cancer, cervical cancer and other pre-cancerous lesions that can develop into cancer. HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer with 14 HPV types known to be oncogenic. Of these HPV types 16 and 18 are responsible for most HPV-related cancers. About 1.23 lakh new infections and 77 thousand 300 people die due to cancer every year in the country.
Cervavac vaccine of SII
Cervavac, the first indigenous HPV vaccine for the prevention of cervical cancer and other HPV related cancers, was developed and manufactured by the Serum Institute of Pune, India. The vaccine mainly targets women and men aged 9-26 years.
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