Advancing Gender-Neutral HPV Vaccination at World Cancer Congress – ECO

European Cancer Organisation shared a post by Global Action on Men’s Health on LinkedIn, adding the following:

“Today at the World Cancer Congress, ECO Head of Policy Richard Price joined a panel on ‘Boys, Men, and HPV: The Case for Worldwide Gender-Neutral Vaccination,’ hosted by Global Action on Men’s Health and NOMAN is an Island: Race to End HPV.

Key insights were shared from ECO’s advocacy work through policy, data, and communications, particularly in CEE countries, and discussed the HPV protect campaign supporting Romania, Croatia, and Bulgaria.

ECO believes success in Europe towards eliminating HPV cancers can help inspire other parts of the world to achieve the same goal by adopting gender-neutral vaccination policies.”

Quoting Global Action on Men’s Health’s post:

“Today, 19 September, GAMH and NOMAN is an Island: Race to End HPV are launching a new Call for global gender-neutral HPV vaccination. The call is supported by over 20 leading organisations, including the World Federation of Public Health Associations, the European Cancer Organisation, the European Association of Urology, Cancer Alliance (South Africa), and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Coalition for HPV Elimination. Several GAMH member organisations – Movember, Men’s Foundation (South Africa), and Outreach Scout Foundation (Malawi) – are also supporting the Call.

The case for vaccinating young people – whatever their sex or gender – is clear. HPV can cause a wide range of cancers – cervical, anal, penile, throat, and others – with an estimated 180,000 new cases in men worldwide each year. In some countries, over 30% (and in the USA, 42%) of all the HPV-related cancer cases are in men. While gender-neutral HPV vaccination has been introduced in about 70 countries, these are mostly high-income countries. Most middle- and low-income countries either have no HPV vaccination programme or vaccinate only girls. Also, most countries with vaccination programmes have uptake levels below 90%, the level at which the community as a whole is protected against HPV infection.

We are therefore calling for the World Health Organisation and other international public health bodies, as well as national governments, to commit to the introduction of global gender-neutral HPV vaccination with a target vaccine uptake of 90% by 2030.

The Call to Action is being launched at the World Cancer Congress in Geneva. The case for action report is available here and more information about the initiative is available at a new, dedicated website.”

Source: European Cancer Organisation/LinkedIn and Global Action on Men’s Health/LinkedIn