NHS West Essex temporarily suspends cervical cancer vaccination programme
NHS WEST ESSEX has temporarily suspended its HPV vaccination programme for three days. The organisation made the decision in order that it can write to parents of young girls due to get immunised this week with further information about the programme. NHS
NHS WEST ESSEX has temporarily suspended its HPV vaccination programme for three days.
The organisation made the decision in order that it can write to parents of young girls due to get immunised this week with further information about the programme.
NHS West Essex know that following the recent tragic death of a 14-year-old girl in Coventry, a number of parents and girls are anxious about this important vaccination programme and want to reassure them of the strong safety record that this vaccine has.
The programme in west Essex will resume on Friday.
The PCT can confirm that it does not hold stocks of the same batch of vaccine which is the subject of an investigation following the unexplained death of the girl.
The girl in Coventry died yesterday (Monday) shortly after receiving the vaccine. Full tests are underway at her local health trust to discover if her death was linked with the Cervarix injection. No link has been established.
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NHS West Essex Director of Public Health, Alison Cowie, said: "Cervarix, the HPV vaccine has a strong safety record. It has passed the rigorous safety testing needed for it to be used in the UK and other European countries.
"We are writing to those parents of young girls that were due to get the vaccine this week in order to reassure them of this."
The Department of Health is advising parents or young people who are worried about the safety of any vaccine to speak to their GP or visit www.immunisation.nhs.uk for background information about the vaccination programme.
A routine programme of vaccinating 12 and 13-year-old girls started last September across the UK using the Cervarix vaccine.
In the UK, about 3000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year and about 1000 die from it.
