NEWLY released figures show that the 2019 rollout of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to boys has shown great promise in the Mid West, with more than eight in 10 boys in secondary schools in the region opting in to the HPV cervical cancer vaccination programme in the last academic year.
The vaccination programme has met with great success in the Mid West for both sexes, with an uptake in the 2022/23 school year of 83.8 per cent of girls and 80.4 per cent of boys.
The HPV 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 which only affects women.
Since September 2019, boys have also been offered the HPV vaccine against cancers and genital warts.
The information is contained in figures published by the HSE’s Health protection Surveillance Sector this Tuesday morning.
