COALITION HPV AND MINISTRY OF HEALTH TOOK THE FIRST STEPS FOR JOINT WORK IN VACCINE PROPHYLACTICS FOR CERVICAL CANCER
In the beginning of July 2023, the Coalition HPV and the Ministry of Health officially declared their cooperation for combatting cervical cancer and providing vaccines. Organizations’ joint work is aimed at eliminating the cervical cancer as a serious health threat in the country.
Associate professor Okoliyski concluded with sadness that vaccinal coverage of girls aged 10 to 12 declined throughout the years from 10% to 1% under the National Program for Primary Cervical Cancer Prophylactics (CC). “This is a severe problem since every day one woman in Bulgaria loses her life because of CC. Before we manage to change the public attitudes towards vaccination and the attitude of key medical specialists we need not to invest in new approaches and new target groups to be covered by the National program. We could think about including boys in the future because the HPV- related diseases impact males as well, yet our main goal should be young girls and expansion of the vaccination coverage.”
Coalition HPV presented its activity – since its incorporation on the 9 th of March 2023 as national, expert and nongovernmental. Its purpose is effective prevention of diseases related to Human papilloma virus (HPV) via the arrangement of Academy for health journalists (the 29 th of May), depositing open letter to the attention of the Ministry of health (31 st of May) until the establishment of professional ties with the European Cancer Organisation (20 th of June) and the creation of Coalition’s official website: www.hpvcoalition.bg
The Chairperson of the Bulgarian Association of Medical Virology, professor Radka Argirova underlined the great progress made with the anti-HPV vaccine and that in practice it serves for cervical cancer prevention and other eight diseases among which throat cancer, larynx and lung cancer. Professor Argirova explained the need to train general practitioners to this end, as well as paediatricians, obstetricians, and the doctors of the Regional Health Inspectorate. “We need to follow the big goal – prophylactic plan need to be extended yet we should take into consideration every small aim we achieve”, the virologist added.
Iliya Tasev from directorate “Public health protection and health control” explained that the efforts made by his colleagues to introduce prophylactics programs face difficulties “since prophylactics result would become visible in 15-years-time, and healthcare is expected to provide short-term results”.
Doctor Momchil Baev and the oncologist, doctor Antoaneta Tomova proposed on behalf of Coalition HPV to proceed to timely preparation for the new National prophylactics program after the expiration of the present one, so the target vaccination group could include girls and boys aged 10 to 12, as well as the HPV vaccination should become mandatory for the girls aged 11. In his reply, Iliya Tasev explained that this would cost from 12 to 15 million BGN annually and that prophylactic policies are underfunded in principle.
Professor PhD Ivaylo Tarnev, chairman of foundation “Health issues of minorities” highlighted the success made by the National Network of Health Mediators to expand immunization coverage among the Roma community.
Additionally, the specialist explained that general practitioners’ remuneration for administering a recommended vaccine is too low and called on the Ministry of Health to work for equalization with the payment for the mandatory vaccines.
The joint work between Coalition HPV and the Ministry of Health is an important step in achieving better health of nation and lowering the diseases related to human papilloma virus. We expect that this collaboration would result in significant improvement of public health and the provision of high quality health cares for the citizens of Bulgaria. Until now, the Coalition arranged an Academy for health journalists, deposited an open letter to the attention of the Ministry of Health, supported the establishment of professional ties with the European Cancer Organisation. Information campaign is forthcoming that is aimed at the parents “Protect their future”.
