Ghana Health Service (GHS) has announced plans to launch a vaccination campaign by the end of the year, targeting pre-adolescents aged 9 to 14 across the country.
The Service made this known in an article titled “GHS to vaccinate young girls against cervical cancer.”
“Because we have already done a pilot, which was to learn lessons, we will roll out a nationwide vaccination, and our focus is usually on young people before they start their sexual debut. So by the end of the year, we should have started the vaccination,” the article read.
The aim of this initiative is to reduce the prevalence of the human papillomavirus (HPV) among women in Ghana.
Ghana experienced a higher-than-average incidence rate of cervical cancer among women, with 31.9 cases per 100,000 women in 2018. This figure is more than double the global average of 13.1 cases per 100,000 women.
Additionally, the mortality rate associated with cervical cancer in Ghana during the same year was 19.6 deaths per 100,000 women. This rate is nearly three times higher than the global average mortality rate of 6.9 deaths per 100,000 women.
In light of this, GHS is set to embark on a two-day nationwide vaccination among youngsters.
Programmes Manager for the Expanded Programme on Immunisation at the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Kwame Amponsah-Achiano, highlighted the importance of administering the two-dose vaccine to each child.
“While we were doing the piloting, we had to give three doses, then it came to two, and now we are talking of one, but the one dose is also premised on the fact that we need to have a well-established screening, but we are likely to do two doses because that is the best card put forward,” he said.
According to the ICO/IARC Information Centre on HPV and Cancer, Ghana has a significant population of women at risk of cervical cancer. Every year, thousands of women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and many succumb to the disease. Cervical cancer ranks as the second most common cancer among women in Ghana, particularly affecting those aged 15 to 44.
While data on HPV burden in the general population of Ghana is not yet available, statistics from Western Africa, to which Ghana belongs, indicate that a significant proportion of women may carry cervical HPV 16/18 infection, which is associated with a high risk of cervical cancer.