A potentially life-saving vaccination already given free to girls should also be offered to boys, the Irish Cancer Society has said. Two out of every three teenage girls in Ireland avail of a publicly-funded HPV vaccine, which protects them against developing cervical cancer when older. In a number of countries the HPV vaccine is offered to boys as well as girls, including Austria, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US. Uptake had dropped from 87 per cent nationally — the world’s most successful HPV vaccination programme at the time — to just 50 per cent in 2016. It found the vaccine was both safe and effective, and that immunising both boys and girls would have “considerable health benefits”.

Source: The Irish Times September 07, 2018 11:37 UTC