Too late to start cervical cancer vaccinations

IT will be impossible to start the cervical cancer vaccination programme in secondary schools after Easter, as promised earlier this week by Health Minister Mary Harney, a public health doctor has claimed.

Dr Paula Gilvarry, chair of the Irish Medical Organisation’s public health doctors committee, said that even if adequate resources were available, it was too late to start the three-dose vaccination programme.

Ms Harney told a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children this week that the cervical cancer programme for first year students would start after Easter.