Row over cancer vaccine for girls

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Campaigners and charities questioned why the Department of Health opted for Cervarix over the more widely-used Gardasil.

Lisa Power, head of policy at the Terrence Higgins Trust, accused it of "saving pennies to spend pounds later" by not choosing the jab that also protects against genital warts.

The Department of Health announced on Wednesday afternoon that pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has won the contract to provide Cervarix for use across England.

Cervarix will be given to girls aged 12 and 13 from this September in an attempt to cut the number contracting Human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes most cases of cervical cancer.

Cervarix guards against two strains of the HPV virus - 16 and 18 - which cause 70% of cases of cervical cancer. Gardasil protects against strains 6, 11, 16 and 18, lesions and genital warts.

The Department of Health said the cost of providing Cervarix is "commercially confidential".

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "The contract has been awarded for the vaccine that scored best overall against a number of pre-agreed criteria and offers best overall value to the NHS. The vaccination programme has always been about cervical cancer protection, irrespective of which vaccine was chosen. We chose the vaccine that best met this need."

But Julie Bentley, chief executive of the FPA (formerly the Family Planning Association), said: "While we of course welcome the introduction of a nationwide vaccine programme to prevent cervical cancer, it is difficult to understand why the Department of Health has missed a huge opportunity to protect an entire generation of young women against genital warts by not choosing the Gardasil vaccine ... Selecting the Gardasil vaccine would've been a huge preventative measure in terms of health and financial costs to the NHS."

Lisa Power, head of policy at the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "While we welcome any advance at all we are very disappointed at the short-sightedness of this decision. By failing to choose the vaccine with the widest coverage, the Department of Health is condemning Britons to a further increase in genital warts and other cancers which could have been prevented. They are saving pennies to spend pounds later."