By Peter Duru, Makurdi

Over 500, 000 girls in Benue state between the ages of nine and 14 are expected to receive the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, HPV, for protection against cervical cancer and other HPV-related diseases.

The Benue State Coordinator of the World Health Organisation, WHO, Dr. Mohammed Abdulkarim made this known in an interaction during the Benue State Primary Health Care Board, organised meeting on Agenda for State Media Orientation and Sensitization on HPV Vaccine Introduction.

Dr. Abdulkarim who urged the people to disregard any misconceptions and misinformation on vaccines and its adverse reactions pointed out that the use of vaccine had saved millions of lives globally from live threatening ailments.

He said: “We cannot completely say we don’t have any cases of adverse reaction to vaccine because even certain foods that we eat also cause damage to the body, but in the case of vaccine such cases are rear. And at the end of the day, the benefits of vaccines outweigh any insignificant adverse reaction.”

He noted that in the case of the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, HPV, “which is highly effective in preventing cervical cancer and other types of cancer caused by the human papillomavirus, there are 47 reports for every 100,000 vaccination. And out of these 47 reports, 78.7 percent of them are not serious.”

The State Coordinator said the global organisation was playing a key role in ensuring the success of the exercise in the state saying “presently all the trainings conducted in the Benue state, the World Health Organisation, WHO, isnplatingbs key role. We have around 3,066 teams in the state that will go round for the vaccinations. Each team consists of the vaccinator, the recorder and community leader who goes out to tell the community why they are there. We have six people per team. The figure is large because the population in Benue is large.

“We are paying for the logistics of these teams, which includes their transport fare, the little allowance for them to go out to do the vaccination.

“WHO has been responsible for conducting the trainings. WHO provides all the logistics for all that trainings. We also supported the state by bringing all the facilitators to conduct the trainings. After that we are now supporting the campaign by providing the logistics for the teams to move from where they are and where they will do the vaccination.

“The teams have already gone round and know how many girls that they are targeting, how many schools they would go to. And in addition to that, they also know where to provide the vaccine outside the schools, because there are children who do not go to school; so we are targeting those also.”

On the targeted beneficiaries, Dr. Abdulkarim said, “though the state has not placed a ceiling on the number of children to be vaccinated so that no one says we have gotten to that number and the process should be relaxed but we anticipate that we will vaccinate over 500,000 children within the ages of nine and 14.”

Earlier, the Executive Secretary of the BSPHCB, Mrs. Ashi Wende, represented by the Director, Disease Control and Immunisation, in the Board, Joseph kurave who commended the media and all the partners who ensure the success of its health related campaigns and programmes
urged parents to take advantage of the exercise to have their daughters who are within the ages of nine and 14 immunised against cervical cancer “when the exercise is flagged off from October 24 to October 29, 2023.”

Also, the WHO, HPV Consultant Dr. Winifred Onodu in her presentation urged parents to ensure that their daughters within the specified ages were presented for the vacciantion stressing that “the vaccine is free, safe and effective.”

Dr. Onodu explained that the HPV vaccine would be administered on only girls due to its global shortage. “Though boys can be given HPV vaccine, Nigeria is not prioritizing boys for now due to the high burden of cervical cancer disease in females in Nigeria. The vaccine will be introduced to boys in the future.”

She also explained that a single dose of the vaccine would be administered to eligible girls. “However, girls with health-related conditions like HIV/AIDS will require two doses.”