The Head of State, accompanied by the Ministers of Health and Education, François Braun and Pap Ndiaye, will go in the afternoon to a college where he “will attend a vaccination session organized within the establishment”, explained the Presidency of the Republic, four days before the World Awareness Day around diseases induced by human papillomavirus (HPV).
Extremely common, these infections are mostly mildbut they can persist and lead to cancer: HPVs are responsible for 2,900 cancers of the cervix causing more than 1,000 deaths per year, 1,500 cancers of the ENT sphere, 1,500 cancers of the anus, 200 cancers of the vulva or vagina and a hundred penile cancers.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), these cancers can be completely eliminated thanks to screening and vaccination.
Or, le tvaccination coverage in France is currently 37% for girls and 9% for boyswhile the ten-year strategy for the fight against cancer 2021-2030 aims for a target of 80% within seven years.
The importance of vaccination
Vaccination is now recommended for girls and boys between the ages of 11 and 14.
It can also be offered as a catch-up until the age of 19 and remains possible until the age of 26 for men who have sex with men.
A experiment carried out in the Grand Est for two years has shown good results among young people in 5th grade, the vaccination rate rising from 9% to 27% the first year and from 14% to 31% the second.
In Australia, where vaccination takes place at school, the rate of people infected with the HPVs that cause cervical cancer has fallen from 22.7% in 2005-2007 to 1,5% in 2015 among young women aged 18-24, while forecasts are counting on the eradication of cervical cancer within 15 years.