Colombia for the first time includes boys in a vaccination program against the papillomavirus as it has been recently shown that 1 in 3 men are infected and risk transmitting the infection to women.
For the first time in the country, Colombia will start vaccination against the genital human papillomavirus (HPV) for boys.
The Colombian ministry of health announced on September 21 four vaccination days until the end of the year to complete vaccination schedules in the population. On September 30, the focus will be on HPV with a single-dose vaccine for girls from 9 to 17 and 9‑year-old boys.
It is part of a vaccination intensification plan to immunize children from Measles, Rubella, Chickenpox and 27 other diseases to recover immunization rates from before the COVID-19 pandemic that made it more difficult to organize mass vaccination days as authorities regularly do for a population sometimes isolated from healthcare services.
The majority of infections from HPV, for which there is no cure, in men and women are asymptomatic, but they are the leading cause of cervical cancer among women.
HPV infection, a common sexually transmitted infection, causes about 5% of all cancers worldwide, with an estimated 625,600 women and 69,400 men getting HPV-related cancer each year.
Colombia’s plan and the communication of the minister of health, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, follow a recent study highlighting that almost 1 in 3 men over the age of 15 are infected with at least one type of HPV, stressing the need for including boys in their vaccination program to prevent future transmission of the infection to women.
This measure undertaken by Colombia goes beyond the objectives and recommendations from the World Health Organization to have 90% of girls fully vaccinated against HPV by age 15, as they don’t include vaccination for boys.
But more and more countries like Colombia have been including them in their vaccination program against HPV infections, although coverage for boys is largely lagging behind. As of 2022, 125 countries (64%) have introduced HPV vaccines in their national immunization program for girls, and 49 countries (25%) for boys, according to WHO data.
But even for women, much progress remains to be made, as only 21% of girls received immunization against the HPV by age 15 worldwide.
