Cervical Cancer: FG, GAVI Partnership To The Rescue

With the recent launch of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine by the federal government, Nigeria is hopeful of a future without cervical cancer related death.

The federal government, with the support of GAVI, has secured doses of HPV vaccine for the first phase of vaccination in 15 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), targeting about 7.7 million girls (aged 9 to 14).

The states include Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Enugu, Jigawa, Kano, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ogun, Osun, Taraba, and FCT. The remaining 21 states

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women in Nigeria, and the second most common cause of cancer-related fatalities among women aged 15 to 49 years.

“Nigeria alone contributes an estimated 12,075 new cases of global cervical cancer annually. HPV infection has been identified as a high-risk factor, implicated in 95 percent of cervical cancer cases. With 12,000 new diagnoses and 8,000 lives claimed each year, it translates to 33 new cervical cancer cases and 22 deaths every day in our nation,“ said former executive director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib.

Meanwhile, the GAVI alliance has made commitments to provide 22.3 million doses of HPV vaccine to Nigeria between 2023 – 2025.

Head of HPV Programme in GAVI, Emily Kobayashi who revealed this to journalists in Abuja, said out of the number, Gavi will provide eight million doses of the vaccine  in 2023, 11 million doses in 2024 and 3.3 million doses in 2025.

She noted that after this first phase, which is capturing 15 States and the FCT,  there will be a second phase where the remaining 21 states that have not yet launched the vaccine will launch the vaccine and will be n the first half of next year.

“And I think that phase will also really draw the lessons to be learnt in this early phase about how best to reach girls and their families in their communities especially those out of school girls who are more challenging to identify to attract the development

“After that, the second phase campaign which will be just like this one targeting nine to 14 year old beginning at the end of next year. So every year, nine year old girls will become eligible for the vaccine. So every year there will be about 3 or 4 million girls who turn nine who are newly eligible for the vaccine, so the government of Nigeria is committed from here forward to make sure that the vaccine is available to be delivered to those girls every year and so what we can anticipate is that there will be vaccinations continuing year after year in schools, in the communities targeting those mine year old girls as they age to eligibility.

She said the commitment is there between the government of Nigeria and GAVI moving forward, adding that the federal government requested GAVI support with the introduction of those vaccines.

“GAVI is committed to providing eight million doses of the vaccine in 2023, 11 million doses in 2024 and 3.3 million doses in 2025 and moving forward each year we will provide that and those vaccines are purchased through a co-financing agreement with the government so the government is also supporting the procurement of those vaccines.

“We are also establishing private support to the launch of this campaign in the first phase and second phase states and the government is also eligible to continue to receive support overtime to make sure that the health facilities are able to reach these schools every year which also includes reaching the nine year old girls.

“So what‘s very important about the HPV vaccines is that it is not about a one time campaign, it is not about just protecting the girls that are going to be reached over the next week or so, over the next year or so, HPV vaccine is about building a generation or community, it is about having adults, a whole generation of adults who are protected from HPV.”

“In countries who have introduced the vaccine, they have seen that there are remarkable protective effects not just on the people that were vaccinated but also the unvaccinated of similar ages so the commitment overtime is to make sure that there is a whole generation of new and protected adults is extremely important.”

According to her, HPV vaccine is most effective when it‘s given before somebody initiates a sexual relations and it has the highest impact when it‘s given to girls because of the link to cervical cancer and because Cervical cancer is such a common and prevalent type of cancer.