{"id":39066,"date":"2024-01-13T02:09:39","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T20:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=39066"},"modified":"2025-04-24T01:15:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:45:46","slug":"cervical-cancer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/cervical-cancer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Centre set to roll out vaccine drive to fight cervical cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in news?<\/li>\n<li>What is Cervical cancer?<\/li>\n<li>Prevalence of Cervical cancer<\/li>\n<li>Prevention from Cervical cancer<\/li>\n<li>News Summary: Centre set to roll out vaccine drive to fight cervical cancer<\/li>\n<li>Key highlights<\/li>\n<li>Challenges in immunisation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in news?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The government is set to roll out a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign for girls in the 9-14 years age group.<\/li>\n<li>It is a significant step which has potential to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Cervical cancer<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Almost all cervical cancer cases are linked to <u>certain strains of HPV<\/u>, a common virus that is transmitted through sexual contact.<\/li>\n<li>The body\u2019s immune system usually gets rid of the HPV infection naturally within two years.<\/li>\n<li>However, in a small percentage of people the virus can linger over time and turn some normal cells into abnormal cells and then cancer.<\/li>\n<li>It is preventable as long as it is detected early and managed effectively.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Prevalence<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer type and the second leading cause of cancer death in women of reproductive age (15-44) worldwide.<\/li>\n<li>According to the World Health Organization&#8217;s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC-WHO), <u>India accounts for approximately one-fifth of the global burden<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>India witnesses 1.25 lakh cases and approximately 75,000 deaths\u00a0each year (one woman every eight minutes).<\/li>\n<li>About 83 per cent of invasive cervical cancer cases are attributed to HPV 16 or 18 in India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Prevention<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Cervical cancer screening and vaccination are two effective preventive measures.<\/li>\n<li>There is still little awareness among women about this cancer prevention, and less than 10% of Indian women are screened.<\/li>\n<li>All women aged 30-49, regardless of symptoms, should be screened for cervical cancer and their adolescent daughters vaccinated against HPV.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>News Summary:\u00a0Key highlights<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Vaccination drive planned in three phases over three years\n<ul>\n<li>The immunisation drive, planned in three phases over three years.\n<ul>\n<li>Every year for three years, one-third of girls aged 9 to 14 will get vaccinated.<\/li>\n<li>Also, in states where this happens, each new group of 9-year-olds will receive the vaccine during these three years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Vaccines to be available for free\n<ul>\n<li>Currently, the two-dose HPV vaccine is available commercially for about Rs 2,000 per dose.<\/li>\n<li>But once the government includes it in its immunisation programme, it will be available for free.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Vaccine to be use in the immunisation drive\n<ul>\n<li>Cervavac, an indigenously developed quadrivalent vaccine by the Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune, will be used for this drive.\n<ul>\n<li>Cervavac offers protection against four HPV strains \u2013 16, 18, 6 and 11.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Besides CERVAVAC, two vaccines licensed globally are available in India;\n<ul>\n<li>a quadrivalent vaccine (Gardasil, marketed by Merck) and<\/li>\n<li>a bivalent vaccine (Cervarix, marketed by Glaxo Smith Kline).<\/li>\n<li>These vaccines are costly and hence are unaffordable for the vast majority of Indians.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Place of vaccination\n<ul>\n<li>The immunisation drive will be conducted through schools and existing vaccination points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Single dose vaccination drive\n<ul>\n<li>While none of the HPV vaccines available globally recommend a single-dose schedule, the World Health Organisation says that a single-dose regimen can be followed for public health programmes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Challenges<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Production for public vaccination\n<ul>\n<li>At present, SII has a production capacity of about 2-3 million doses of Cervavac per year.<\/li>\n<li>However, it needs to increase this capacity, with a target of 60-70 million doses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Allocation of resources\n<ul>\n<li>The biggest task will be in allocating adequate resources and manpower for vaccinating the massive demographic of adolescent girls aged between 9 and 14.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Awareness\n<ul>\n<li>There is a huge need for stepping up awareness about the disease and the vaccine in the community.<\/li>\n<li>Unlike Covid and the vaccination programme, there is very little awareness about cervical cancer.<\/li>\n<li>There is an urgent need to have a communication strategy in place and to ensure that any myths circulating online are promptly busted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1)\u00a0What is human papillomavirus (HPV)?<\/h3>\n<p>The human papillomavirus (HPV) is a virus that can cause an infection. It&#8217;s usually spread through skin-to-skin contact, such as during vaginal or anal sex. A person with HPV can pass the infection to someone else even if they don&#8217;t have any symptoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>Q2\u00a0What is International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)?\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p>The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an intergovernmental agency that is part of the United Nations World Health Organization. IARC&#8217;s mission is to conduct and coordinate research on the causes of cancer and to develop strategies for cancer prevention and control.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/govt-set-to-roll-out-vaccine-drive-to-fight-cervical-cancer-9105897\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Centre set to roll out vaccine drive to fight cervical cancer<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost all cervical cancer cases are linked to certain strains of human papillomavirus (HPV).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":39067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}