• A change in policy would protect around 400,000 boys each year who are currently exposed to the risk of HPV infection and the range of diseases caused by the virus, including several types of cancer.
The founder of a national throat cancer charity has broadly welcomed a decision made by the UK Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) that a universal vaccination programme protecting boys against human papillomavirus (HPV) is cost effective.
This decision paves the way for the Government, through Public Health England, to extend NHS funding which has been supporting HPV vaccination in adolescent girls since 2008.
HPV has been recognised as the cause of nearly all cases of cervical cancer in girls and is increasingly acknowledged as the cause of a dramatic increase in cancers which affect the throat, which is why a ‘gender-neutral’ vaccination programme, equally applying to adolescent boys, has been...