Government extends cervical cancer vaccine campaign for two more years – SUCH TV

Keeping in view the fact that the vaccination campaign against cervical cancer has failed to achieve its targets, the government has decided to continue the campaign for another two years.

In the first phase, the campaign was launched in Islamabad, Punjab, Sindh and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on September 15.

Sources informed that most of the resistance was put up by the parents in the AJK compared to Islamabad and the provinces.

According to the Ministry of Health, the campaign’s target is to vaccinate more than 11.7 million girls, aged between 9 and 14 years.

The vaccine has been successfully administered to the girls in 148 countries, including Muslim countries.

On Wednesday, government had collected the data of the girls whose parents refused to get them vaccinated against cervical cancer.

Prior to the start of the campaign, the computerized national identity cards (CNIC) numbers of these parents and other details were noted down.

Sources told that over 3.6 million parents had refused to get their daughters administered the HPV vaccine.

They elaborated that 68,768 parents in Islamabad did not allow their daughters to be vaccinated against the disease, while in Punjab, the numbers rose to over 2.5 million.

Similarly, they added, there were 854,000 such parents in Sindh and 156,000 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).