Nunavut to vaccinate Grade 6 girls against HPV

Meet Mr. HPV, also known as the the human papillomavirus. A nasty little critter, HPV causes genital warts as well as cancers of the cervix, vulva and anus. (FILE PHOTO)

The government of Nunavut will vaccinate hundreds of Grade 6 girls against a cancer-causing, sexually transmitted virus, starting March 8.

The GN will start the program in schools, where Grade 6 girls who at least nine years old – with parental consent – will be innoculated against human papillomavirus, better known as HPV.

Many women who are infected with HPV never know it, and it never affects their lives. The body’s immune system can defeat the virus, and its worst effects never develop.

But some women with HPV develop cancer in the cervix decades after they are infected with the virus.

Gardasil, the HPV vaccine used in Canada, costs $110 per dose but the health department is administering it for free to girls of the right age.

Dr. Isaac Sobol, Nunavut’s chief medical officer of health, said the GN wants to vaccinate girls before they become sexually active, when they can become infected with HPV.

Once a person is infected with a virus, vaccines generally don’t work, he said.

With federal funding, the department has enough doses to inoculate all of Nunavut’s Grade 6 girls over the next two years, Sobol said.

“We think that with Gardasil in place, cervical cancer is going to be reduced,” Sobol said.

However, anyone above Grade 6 who wants the vaccination for themselves or their daughters will have to find a way to pay for it themselves, he said.

This year’s Grade 6 cohort includes 320 girls in 25 Nunavut schools across the territory.

If not every parent wants their daughter vaccinated, the vaccine supply may last for three years, he said.

Sobol said the department planned to star HPV vaccinations in autumn 2009, but those plans were derailed by the H1N1 scare that summer.

Still, public service announcements have not been issued because the territorial cabinet has not yet been briefed on them. Such materials can’t be released until cabinet approves them, he said.

It’s not known how many Nunavummiut women are HPV positive. The standard test for sexually transmitted infection doesn’t check for HPV.

But Sobol explained that in 2008, a special project tested all pap smear samples collected in Nunavut for HPV.

Of 3,971 such anonymous tests, 7.5 per cent tested positive for HPV types 16 and-or 18, two cancer-causing strains of the virus.

The highest proportion of positive tests were among young women and girls, and less common among women older than 35.

Gardasil is effective against types 16 and 18, but not against all cancer-causing strains.

For example, type 31, which came up in three per cent of the 2008 samples, can cause cervical cancer, and is not deterred by Gardasil.

For that reason, Sobol said that being vaccinated doesn’t entirely protect you from cancer caused by HPV.

He said women should still go to health centres regularly for pap smear testing, which is still the best way to detect pre-cancerous cervical cells.