KUALA LUMPUR, March 29 — The Ministry of Health (MOH) continues to grapple with a backlog in providing human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations to Form One girls, as cohorts in the past two years remain unvaccinated due to vaccine shortages.
A total of 208,500 (98.3 per cent) Form 1 female students from the 2019 cohort, 209,279 (96.7 per cent) from the 2020 cohort, and 113,708 (52.3 per cent) from the 2021 cohort received complete HPV vaccination.
However, due to limited vaccine supplies, no HPV vaccinations could be administered to Form 1 female students in the 2022 and 2023 cohorts.
“To ensure that Form 1 female students who missed out on HPV immunisation receive it, the Ministry of Health will implement a catch-up HPV immunisation programme for all these cohorts in 2024 and ensure they receive the vaccine before completing their schooling,” Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad told Sungai Petani MP Dr Mohammed Taufiq Johari in a written Dewan Rakyat reply on March 5.
“The MOH received a supply of 50,000 doses of HPV vaccine in January 2024, which will be administered to Form 1 female students from the 2021 cohort who have not received any vaccine doses,” Dzulkefly said.
The ministry’s HPV Immunisation Programme, initiated in 2010, achieved immunisation coverage exceeding 95 per cent until 2020.
However, in 2021, this coverage was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted the supply of HPV vaccines globally.
This directly impacted the implementation of HPV immunisation for Form One female students from the 2021 cohort to the 2024 cohort in Malaysia. HPV vaccination helps prevent cervical cancer.
