SCHOOLGIRLS aged 12 and 13 in Newmarket and Mildenhall will be offered a vaccine to protect them against cervical cancer from the end of this month.
The national vaccination programme, the biggest for more than a decade, will see Year 8 girls receive three injections of the drug Cervarix over a six-month period.
Health officials claim it will give them 70 per cent protection again cervical can
cer, which currently affects more than 2,000 people in the UK a year, killing around 400.
The vaccinations start in the last week of this month. School nurses will first be talking to Year 8 pupils and giving them information to take home to their parents, and both the girls and their parents will be asked to give consent before the programme starts.
The immunisation programme will be spearheaded by NHS Suffolk, the county's primary care trust, and will involve over 3,600 girls in independent, middle and high schools in the PCT area.
Dr Brian Keeble, public health consultant with NHS Suffolk, said: "This vaccine protects against the viruses which cause about 70 per cent of cervical cancers, so this immunisation programme will help prevent many women from facing serious illness in years to come.
"One of our key aims at NHS Suffolk is to prevent ill health as well as cure it – and rolling out this vaccination programme will be another way in which we are fulfilling that goal."
NHS Suffolk will be sending out information to parents and students, through schools, this month; giving them more details about the vaccine and how it works.
The vaccinations will not replace NHS Suffolk's cervical screening programme (smear tests) which is offered to all women from age 25.
The full article contains 293 words and appears in Newmarket Journal newspaper.
