▲ The campaign started in primary school Benito Juarez
from the Roma neighborhood, in Mexico City.Photo by Yazmin Ortega Cortes
Laura Poy Solano
The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, September 7, 2024, p. 15
The Undersecretary for Prevention and Health Promotion, Ruy López Ridaura, and the Secretary for Public Education, Leticia Ramírez Amaya, led the launch of the National Vaccination Campaign against the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), from September 2 to December 18, and whose goal is to immunize 1,132,634 girls and adolescents.
Gathered at the elementary school Benito Juarez
From the Roma Sur neighborhood in Mexico City, López Ridaura explained that the immunization strategy targets female students in their fifth grade of primary school, as well as girls who have not been vaccinated and attend sixth grade, girls under 11 years of age who are not in school, as well as adolescents from 12 to 16 years of age with no vaccination history.
The campaign, which has 1.5 million doses, also includes the at-risk population, such as cisgender and transgender women and men aged 11 to 49 who are living with HIV, and girls, women and adolescents aged nine to 19 who are undergoing care for sexual assault.
In an interview, he explained that since 2022 the Ministry of Health has decided to apply the single-dose tetravalent HPV vaccine, which protects against four strains: 16 and 18, which explain up to 70 percent of cases of cervical cancer, as well as 6 and 11, more associated with genital warts
.
López Ridaura said that the goal this year is to reach 95 percent coverage of the target population, which will allow progress in the eradication of this type of cancer, although he acknowledged that at the beginning of this six-year term There was a low supply of HPV vaccine, and in addition, during the pandemic and school closures there was difficulty in administering the vaccination.
.
We know, he said, There are at least two (generational) groups of girls who have not been effectively vaccinated. For this reason, we invite girls in sixth grade who have not been immunized to do so, as there will also be HPV vaccination in all health centers.
.
The recovery of vaccination coverage, he said, will be up to the age of 16, so that all girls from 12 to 16 go to health centers, in particular, those who are not in school. He indicated that in the last school year, 80 percent of the goal was achieved, But we hope that this year we will be able to reach 95 percent of girls and adolescents.
.
The Ministry of Health, through the National Center for Child and Adolescent Health and the General Directorate for Health Promotion of the Mexican Social Security Institute, the Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers, and IMSS-Bienestar are participating in this vaccination campaign. In addition, the Ministries of National Defense, Navy, and Petróleos Mexicanos are participating.
