By Rashaed Esson 

Staff Writer

#Guyana, June 12, 2023 – The number of people taking the HPV vaccine  is low in Guyana, a concerning reality as expressed by Dr. Frank Anthony, Health Minister

HPV, which means human papillomavirus, is  sexually transmitted and can cause a range of health issues, including genital warts and cancer.

Authorities highlighted the vaccine serves as protection from HPV infections and cervical  pre-cancers.

Despite the known fact that cervical cancer is the second most common cancer affecting women in Guyana, not enough people are taking their responsibility to get the vaccine according to Anthony, speaking at the launch of the national expansion of the HEARTS Initiative for the management of cardiovascular diseases.

He pointed out that since the introduction of the program, the number of vaccinated people remains low.

“This is something, I recall HPV vaccination was started…a long time ago. Up to now, we have not been able to scale it up to where it ought to be.”

He further urges the country to encourage more people to get vaccinated, emphasize that it needed to help prevent cervical cancer.

“How are we going to prevent cervical cancer from happening if we don’t have a broad base programme?” he said.

Anthony continued to confront the lack of proper resource usage to effect change that is how your vaccination rate and low cases of cervical cancer.

“It’s not that we don’t have the tools to prevent, it’s that we’re not implementing the tools to the scale that we need to implement it, to make that impact and to bring that change.”

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, all HPV vaccines protect against at least HPV types 16 and 18, which places individuals at the greatest risk of developing cervical cancer.

The WHO says since the beginning of the epidemic, 84.2 million [64.0–113.0 million] people have been infected with the HIV virus and about 40.1 million [33.6–48.6 million] people have died of HIV. Globally, 38.4 million [33.9–43.8 million] people were living with HIV at the end of 2021. An estimated 0.7 percent  [0.6-0.8 percent ] of adults aged 15–49 years worldwide are living with HIV, although the burden of the epidemic continues to vary considerably between countries and regions.

Additionally, the WHO African Region remains most severely affected, with nearly 1 in every 25 adults (3.4 percent ) living with HIV and accounting for more than two-thirds of the people living with HIV worldwide.