Health: Vaccination - Cancer jab presents admin challenge

Last week the UK's governments agreed to inoculate all girls aged 12 to13 against the virus responsible for 70 per cent of cervical cancer.

Public health minister Caroline Flint said although there was to be anindependent review of the cost of introducing the anti-cancer vaccine,the jab was likely to be introduced into the national immunisationprogramme next September, in line with advice from an expert panel. "Thebenefits of introducing this vaccine will be felt by women and theirfamilies for generations to come," she said.

Professor David Elliman, consultant in community child health at GreatOrmond Street Hospital, welcomed the plan, but warned that implementingthe three-dose jab was likely to prove a significant challenge to healthauthorities' powers of organisation. "This will be quite anorganisational test because there will be three injections, so therewill need to be a good recall system," he said. "In the US, children aregiven the second dose a month after the first then, several monthslater, the third. So there has to be a set up to remind them tocome."