£64m cancer vaccination plans

8 April 2008 12:00am

A vaccination scheme in Scotland to protect girls against cervical cancer will cost £64m over the next three years, it has been revealed.

Public health minister Shona Robison described the initiative - which is being brought in a year ahead of the rest of the UK - as being "one of the biggest and most complex immunisation programmes" ever.

In the next two years alone 180,000 girls will be offered the vaccine. And Ms Robison said it had the "potential to deliver tremendous health benefits for future generations of young women".

The vaccine is designed to protect against the two types of HPV (human papilloma virus) that cause some 70% of cases of cervical cancer. The SNP pledged to make the vaccine available as part of its election manifesto.

The immunisation programme will get under way at the start of September, with the injection being offered to girls and women aged under 18 on September 1 this year.

Ms Robison announced that the routine immunisation would take place when girls were in their second year of high school.

In addition there will be a catch-up programme, with girls offered the injection when they are in fifth or sixth year along with others who have already left school.

Health boards across Scotland will be given an extra £1.5m in 2008-09 in recognition of the scale and complexity of the vaccine programme.

Ms Robison said: "This is one of the biggest and most complex immunisation programmes ever undertaken in Scotland.

"But it has potential to deliver tremendous health benefits for future generations of young women, offering them protection against the virus responsible for almost three quarters of cervical cancers."

© The Press Association