Prevention is the Cure

"We have an amazing, safe vaccine to prevent cancer and we offer this to every student in every province and territory through public health."

"[Because of the pandemic] there has been a  huge decrease in immunization. We have to catch up and protect people from the risk of HPV, the risk of cancer."

Dr.Vivien Brown, past president, Federation of Medical Women of Canada, chair, co-founder HPV prevention week in Canada

"One woman in three who get cervical cancer will die from it. People don't seem to understand how lethal this cancer can be."

"Those who survive it can become unable to bear children because of [cancer] treatment."

"It's not a nice cancer to get."

Dr.Jennifer Blake, CEO, Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada

All Ontario children normally receive two doses of the HPV vaccine in Grade 7, first in the fall and then in the spring. (Harry Cabluc/Associated Press file photo)

 

Dr. Blake, obstetrician and gynaecologist at The Ottawa Hospital group is a clinician treating young patients with cervical cancer. Her experience has given her a deep understanding of the value inherent in cervical cancer prevention -- as the second-most-common cancer in women between age 20 and 44. All cancers are alarmingly devastating to the health, quality of life and longevity of those who contract them, cervical cancer in particular can be life-altering and lethal.

Childhood vaccines routinely offered to teen-age girls through public health at school-based clinics have turned statistics around, protecting girls and women from a dread cancer diagnosis. The delivery of that vaccine, however, has been interrupted during this time of the global pandemic when schools have been closed and remote learning has become the default in the public education system -- which has meant a vacuum now exists, the numbers of vaccinated have drastically dropped as vaccine delivery was halted.

 

 

The concern arising among medical experts is that a rise in cervical and other cancers may result from the lapse in the aggressive HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine injections. As the most common sexually transmitted viral infection, HPV can be harmless and usually is, fading of its own volition, but for some unfortunates it can lead to cervical or head and neck cancers. Avoidance of that occurrence is of huge importance.

Widespread use of the HPV vaccine has had a dramatic effect in reducing cases of cervical cancer, according to studies, particularly among girls vaccinated before age 17. Some HPV-caused head and neck cancers in both men and women are believed to be forestalled by the vaccine, as well. School closures resulting in a lapse of the vaccine delivery is now a matter of some alarm for what the future may bring.

In 2019, 410 of the 1,350 Canadian women who developed cervical cancer died from its effects. A new HPV test to detect the virus prior to it causing precancerous changes is replacing the conventional Pap test, long in use. Australia has made the HPV vaccine available to everyone and in so doing has just about eliminated cervical cancer cases there.

 

A study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine found that girls vaccinated before turning 17 were significantly less likely to develop cervical cancer. (Joe Raedle/Getty)