Allow your daughters to get the HPV vaccine

For a quite some time now, I have looked at cancer fighting strategies in Tanzania and realized that we still have a huge mountain to climb.

Yet, at times I wonder if the various approaches we have been using so far will enable us to turn victorious in this war against various forms of cancer.

For this reason, it was encouraging to learn recently that Tanzania has for the first time achieved a historical milestone to roll out a Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine, the type of cancer that occurs and initially grows in the cells of the cervix, the second most common cancer among women globally.

As a medic, I strongly applaud this initiative because more than half a million women around the world are diagnosed with cervical cancer annually.

Over half of them die of the disease. Most of these cases and deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), globally, the East African region is the leading burden carrier of cervical cancer and the recent report from WHO even suggest that Tanzania is among the five countries with the highest rates in Africa.

January was cervical cancer awareness month and I wrote about cervical cancer in several publications! But just to remind you, this type of cancer has multiple risk factors such as early sexual activity, multiple sexual partners, multi parity, Sexually Transmitted diseases including HIV and other STIs, like Chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis; tobacco use, vitamin deficiency and HPV infection.

A safe and effective HPV vaccine launched recently when provided to young girls between 9 and 14 years old protects against HPV and therefore cervical cancer.

However, there are few misconceptions that have arisen recently that the vaccine carry health risk or side effects and this has drawn fear among the people that has led to concern that their children might suffer from certain complications from this vaccine.

I want to assure people that there are neither any serious side effects from this type of vaccine nor any permanent health risk; people should therefore send these fears to the garbage bin.

Overall, the effects are usually mild. The most common side effects of HPV vaccines include soreness, swelling or redness at the injection site that heal on its own shortly after vaccination.

Sometimes little dizziness after the injection. Remaining seated for several minutes after the injection can reduce the risk of dizziness.

In addition, headache, nausea, vomiting, fatigue or weakness also may occur. And the health care providers that will be working in this program have gone through relevant trainings to make sure that the safety of these girls during vaccination is guaranteed.

This program intends to reach millions of young girls with the age of below 14 in the country. We have noticed that the group of this age, is by far eligible for this type of vaccination because it is ideal for girls to receive the vaccine before they become sexually active which might expose them to HPV because once someone is infected with the virus, the vaccine might not be effective.

I brand this initiative as the ‘life redeemer’ since it will help to save our future mothers, sisters and wives from cervical cancer deaths.

So it is only down to parents and guardians to pay positive response on this initiative by making sure that their daughters get vaccinated.