Boys will be offered HPV vaccine from next autumn
Nine years ago the HPV vaccine (Human Papillomavirus) was made available to girls in the 7th grade. Boys will soon be offered the same. This is partly due to the fact that research shows no extra effect from a third shot in young women.
Even though the decision has been taken that boys will receive the same offer as girl, it will take some time before the first vaccines are doled out.
Vaccination for boys will not be introduced before the school year 2018/2019.
This is because the Norwegian Institute of Public Health(FHI) needs time to produce and distribute information to the municipalities, the boys and their parents, according to the Conservatives’ (Høyre) website.
HPV is the most commonly sexually transmitted infection among both women and men
Even so, until now only girls have been offered the vaccine.
This despite that the vaccination of boys is as likely to prevent HPV-related cancer in men as effectively as it does for women, writes Sykepleien.
Sykepleien is the magazine for Norwegian nurses.
The Norwegian Institute for Public Health (Folkehelseinstituttet) has recommended that the health authorities vaccinate boys as well as girls.
In March, senior physician and professor of gynecology, Ole Erik Iversen, queries exactly what the Minister of Health is waiting for.
In Today’s Medicine, Iversen wonders if an HPV vaccine for boys is to be the Minister’s ‘ace in the hole’ for the election campaign.
On Wednesday, the day before the revised national budget, and beautifully poised four months before the election, the notice of the new vaccine program for boys arrived.
– Now we will make sure that boys receive the same offer, says the Minister of Health, Bent Høie (Conservatives).
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today
