30 September 2009
Jersey’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr Rosemary Geller, has issued the following statement about the Cervical Cancer vaccination programme:
“As you will be aware the HPV Cervical Cancer vaccination programme was postponed yesterday following the death of a 14 year old girl who had received a Cervical Cancer vaccine at school in the UK. The reports from the UK have since stated that the tragic incident is likely to have been due to an underlying medical condition rather than the HPV vaccination.
While we have no reason for concern over the batch of Cervarix vaccine that was given to the 14 year old girl in the UK, the vaccine manufacturer is recalling remaining stock of this batch.
We will be restarting our vaccination programme from tomorrow (1 October 2009). For vaccinations that were due to be given at Hautlieu School on Tuesday 29 September and at Highlands College today (30 September), these will now take place on:
HIGHLANDS: Thursday 8 October
HAUTLIEU: Friday 9 October
We would like to reassure parents that the HPV programme will continue to be monitored by the Public Health Department locally and by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in the UK. “