By Kelly Eve

Last updated 12:53, Monday, 06 October 2008

The first jabs have been given to Cumbrian schoolgirls in the roll-out of a national vaccination programme to protect from cervical cancer.

Dr Nigel Calvert: ‘Deaths will fall’

Year eight girls at Trinity School in Carlisle have been among the first in the county to be immunised.

The school’s first round of immunisations were given on Wednesday. Other sessions are planned in early November and next March. Consent letters have been sent home to parents.

In his first newsletter of the year to parents, head Alan Mottershead said: “On average over 1,000 women are dying every year from cervical cancer, therefore I urge you to encourage your daughters to have this vaccination.”

Cumbria Primary Care Trust is responsible for the local immunisation programme. More than 3,000 girls are eligible in Cumbria for the vaccination, which is give in three doses over six months.

The trust hopes that the programme will help cut the number of cases of cervical cancer by nearly three-quarters.

The jabs are to help protect against Human Papillomavirus (HPV). The vaccine protects against the two types of the sexually-transmitted HPV which cause more than 70 per cent of cervical cancers.

Schools across the UK started vaccinating pupils aged 12 and 13 in year eight in early September.

“New cases of cervical cancer have been falling for years thanks to the national cervical cancer screening programme,” said Dr Nigel Calvert, associate director of public health at NHS Cumbria.

“The HPV vaccination should ensure the 11 or so women who currently die each year from cervical cancer in Cumbria falls significantly in the years to come.”

There are more than 100 types of HPV but only 13 cause cancer. The vaccination protects against types 16 and 18 which are responsible for most cases.

However, because it doesn’t protect against all HPV viruses it will be essential that girls, like their mothers, take part in the NHS cervical cancer screening programme once they are old enough.

In the three years to 2006, 33 women died of cervical cancer in Cumbria.

Further information is available at www.immunisation.nhs.uk/Vaccines/HPV or by calling the national HPV helpline on 0845 602 3303.

KEve@cngroup.co.uk