Today Q&A about the news that a 14 year old girl died soon after receiving the Cervarix vaccine in the UK.

My view

It’s always sad when someone dies.

I have no objection to the safety of vaccinations. It is a fact that there are risks, but they are remote, especially when compared to the diseases they prevent.  We do not know yet what caused the accident but this is the first death in England.

Any doctor will tell you that death caused by vaccine will be very rare and that since 750 women die from cervical cancer in England every year the benefits outweigh the costs.

One issue does remain, the vaccine has not been proved to work beyond the 5 year period and the vaccine is marketed as working for 5+ years, so there may be a need for vaccinate again all those young girls (see death stats here).

I have to say there are a lot of critics out there. Some will question the success rate of the vaccine, some will question the link between the HPV virus and having cervix cancer, some will attack the marketing techniques, some will say that regardless of the vaccine a yearly review will still be needed, some regard the vaccination program as an experiment. So many more…

Apart from all these views which are well worth listening to,  I am of the view that this vaccine program is worth being undertaken. I just hope a better vaccine will in time be developed  that has lesser side effects.

What happened?

All we know at this stage is that a 14-year-old girl tragically died shortly after being given the vaccine. We do not know her past medical history, and a post-mortem has yet to be held to ascertain the cause of death.

What do we know about the vaccine?

Cervarix vaccine prevents infection with the two commonest types of HPV involved in cervical cancer. HPV stands for Human Papillomavirus.

Cervarix is given in three doses during a six-month period to trigger immune responses that help protect against two strains of HPV responsible for most cervical cancer cases.

The vaccine is approved for females ages 9 to 26. The vaccine has not been tested beyond 5 years so it is not known how long the immunity from the vaccine will last beyond that.

Even with the cervical screening program, in England, each year, there are:

• 21,617 cases of advanced precancerous disease.

• 2,221 cases of invasive cancer of the cervix.

• 899 deaths from cancer of the cervix.

The vaccine will probably prevent around 70% of these. It has been used in this country for just over a year, and more than a million doses have been given. Worldwide, many more doses have been administered with a good safety record.

Here are links to some stats and infor from the NHS

Is the vaccine safe?

The vaccine is safe, there will always be events of bad reactions and some mild to serious side effects.  Since the vaccine was introduced (it is now licensed in over 90 countries), its safety has been monitored very carefully. In spite of millions of doses being given, we haven’t heard of other deaths.

Now i don’t want to appear biased but the side effects do exist.  In the UK, Cervarix has been used for a year now, there have been over 2000 adverse reactions and over 4000 suspected adverse reactions. About 10 of these are so serious that their families are suing Glaxo Smith Kline, the manufacturer of the vaccine. Read here on page 2.

My conclusion is that overall, rarely a person does have a life-threatening allergic reaction after a vaccine and things have not changed with this one.

Could there be a problem with a particular batch of vaccine?

Until we know more, this is impossible to say. However, as a precaution, the batch from which this young girl was immunised (AHPVA043BB).

Should we go on using the vaccine?

The worldwide track record of this vaccine is such that it is most unlikely there is any problem with the vaccine in general.

The UK Government introduced a systematic program of vaccination in April 2008 to protects girls from the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus which causes 70 per cent of cervical tumours.
When the Government introduced the Cervarix vaccination programme last year, some campaigners dubbed it a “promiscuity jab”. The vaccine was developped by Galxosmithkline.

In total the drug safety watchdog Medicines and Health care products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has recorded so far about more than 2,000 suspected reactions but these were overall mild, with dozens of girls recording rashes, pain in the arm, and allergies.

A support group says it has received dozens of calls from parents who believe their daughters have been damaged by the vaccine.
The parents of one teenage girl given the jab last autumn believe it was to blame for repeated seizures which have left her with brain damage and psychosis.

The report prepared by the MHRA earlier this month also discloses cases in which teens have suffered convulsions, eye rolling, muscle spasms, seizures and hyperventilation soon after being given the jab.

The analysis by the MHRA, drawn up this month, found 2,107 patients had reported some kind of suspected adverse reaction to Cervarix. Several reported multiple reactions, with 4,602 suspected side-effects recorded in total.

Jackie Fletcher, founder of Jabs, a support group for families whose children have fallen ill after immunisation, said she had taken dozens of calls from parents who believed their daughters had been damaged by the cervical cancer vaccine.

She said: “We have spoken to parents whose daughters have had seizures, paralysis, blurred vision, severe headaches and the loss of feeling in parts of their body.

“Doctors will try to convince parents that these problems are in their child’s mind, or have nothing to do with the vaccines, but we don’t think there is sufficient evidence to show Cervarix is safe.”
Medical safety experts insist the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.

A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Cervarix, said the drug had to undergo rigorous testing, with over 70,000 doses used in trials before a licence was granted.