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New improved version of HPV vaccine to be launched shortly

Stephen Gadd
September 25th, 2017


This article is more than 7 years old.

The ministry of health has announces that a better version of its HPV vaccine will be available from the late-autumn

With luck, the new vaccine will help to protect even more people against HPV (photo: US Air Force/Staff Sgt. Benjamin W. Stratton)

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is a common sexually-transmitted infection that can cause health problems, including genital warts and cervical cancer.

The Danish national disease control laboratory, Statens Serum Institut (SSI), has just completed the bidding process for an improved version of the vaccine.

The new vaccine, Gardasil 9, is a so-called 9-valent type that can protect people against 89.5 percent of the HPV types that cause cervical cancer, DR Nyheder reports.

The current vaccine is only a 2-valent type offering protection against 71 percent of HPV types.

Gardasil 9, which will become available in the late autumn, also offers protection against 84.5 percent of anal cancer types in both men and women.

An investment in health
“We will be getting an even better vaccine than the one we have at present,” said the health minister, Ellen Trane Nørby.

“That’s an important investment in health and I hope it will be taken up by even more people

New figures from SSI reveal that an increasing number of girls are being vaccinated.

From March to August this year, approximately 4,200 HPV vaccinations were given every month compared with around 2,200 per month last year.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”