Of the 17,000 Santa Cruz girls of age who received the human papillomavirus vaccine, only half received it

It happens that about 17,400 girls who have to take the first dose against Human Papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer, only 8,630 received it until August. “We have a balance of 8,770 girls to be vaccinated. Understand that this type of cancer is the leading cause of death in women. The most effective way to prevent this is with the vaccine, which does not produce more adverse effects than usual, namely a little pain in the arm. In Bolivia, 2 to 3 women die every day from this cancer “, is the urgent message from Dr Dorian Jiménez, head of the Extended Immunization Program.

The headquarters is in the last days of the awareness phase on vaccination to prevent cervical cancer, that one year takes the lives of 700 women in the country. “The first phase is a strengthening of the leaders of the Sedes in the municipalities of Santa Cruz, in collaboration with Unicef. We are working with the departmental director of health and the district directors of education, a reach parents who for some reason have not vaccinated their daughters. The idea of ​​this phase is to go directly to the doctors to talk to the parents, “Jimenez explained.

Last week they were in Bishop Santistevan province, with the directors of the municipalities to ensure that this methodology is implemented in all municipalities in the area and in the rural area.

Why is there resistance to vaccination?

Jiménez assures that in rural areas there are a greater number of girls vaccinated. To explain this, he thinks one of the the enemies they fight with is the bad information that is posted on social networks. “Information without a scientific basis is shared on social networks, uploading anything, with other interests, scaring the parents, who, consequently, do not bring their daughters to get vaccinated”.

“I believe that the greater number of vaccinated people in rural areas is due to the lesser influence of social networks on parents than in urban centers,” he explained.

The goal is to immunize the future mother of a family with both doses and to ensure that she has the safety and certainty of having specific protection against cervical cancer.. The second dose is applied six months after the first and the target population is girls between 10 and 15 years of age. Vaccines are certified by the World Health Organization (WHO).