As Nigeria fights cervical cancer with HPV vaccine, all hands on deck to boost reception [Video]

(16 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oyo State – 27 May 2024
1. Mid of healthcare workers spreading awareness in local community, calling out and singing information with megaphone
2. SOUNDBITE (Yoruba) Ramotalai Awoniran, mother of vaccinated girl: ++PART OVERLAID BY SHOT 1++
“We have heard about cervical cancer before now and we are aware of the disease it creates, that’s why I asked my daughter to go get vaccinated as a preventive measure.”
3. Mid of healthcare worker spreading awareness in local community with megaphone
4. Close of healthcare worker prepping the HPV vaccine
5. Close of girl being vaccinated
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Lagbenro Arinlade-Ayoade, Primary Health Care Coordinator, Oyo West Local Government:
“This vaccine is safe, and it doesn’t have any negative effect on the girls. Because there are some rumours going around that they want to reduce the fertility of the girls, but we have been educating the parents that this vaccine is safe, the only thing it does is it prevents cervical cancer.”
++AUDIO CONTINUES OVER SHOT 7++
7. Various of girl being vaccinated
STORYLINE:
First introduced as part of the routine immunization program in October last year, the HPV vaccine was extended to the majority of Nigerian states on Monday, now making it available across the country which accounted for one out of every eight cases of cervical cancer in Africa in 2020 or 12,000 cases in total, though advocates say estimates could be much higher.

People were before now buying a dose for 60,000 naira ($40), which is just as unaffordable as screening for the cancer in a country whose national poverty rate is more than 60%.

Although the HPV vaccine has been in use in many developed nations for about two decades, it has only been introduced in the immunization programs of just half of the countries in Africa despite the continent’s heavy burden. One in five cervical cancer deaths that occurred globally in 2020 was in Africa, where 100,000 women developed the disease with 70,000 deaths recorded.

“We have heard about the cervical cancer before now and we are aware of the disease it creates,” Ramotalai Awoniran, mother of vaccinated daughter said. “I asked my daughter to go get vaccinated as a preventive measure,” she added.

Ahead of the nationwide vaccination drive, Nigerian authorities had been ramping up campaigns online and offline to educate citizens about the HPV vaccine.

Unlike other vaccination campaigns that the West African country has successfully run against all odds – like the more than 500 languages spoken by its population of at least 210 million people that could make communication more challenging or the underfunded primary healthcare centers which are the remotest government-run health facilities where the shots are usually given – HPV is quite different.

Added to that is improved investment in Nigeria’s ailing health sector whose infrastructure is chronically underfunded and the personnel, grossly underpaid and overstretched as one of the worst doctor staffing globally.

AP video Dan Ikpoyi

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