2023-04-23 17:58:58
Posted
Targeted teenagers in Luxembourg: This sexual infection causes 90% of cervical cancers
LUXEMBOURG – The papillomavirus, which is transmitted mainly during sexual intercourse, is the cause of a large number of cancers of the cervix or penis. The Ministry of Health recalls the interest of vaccination.
The Ministry of Health takes advantage of European Vaccination Week, which begins this Monday, to recall the importance of raising awareness of the papillomavirus (HPV), an infection which is transmitted mainly during sexual intercourse by direct contact with an infected person. . “It is the most widespread sexually transmitted infection in the world and affects both women and men”, recall the Luxembourg health authorities.
It usually disappears on its own, but can also produce precancerous lesions that can develop into cancer. Cervical cancer “is the second most common cancer following breast cancer in women aged 15 to 44 in the European Union”, notes the Ministry of Health without detailing the figures in Grand- Duchy. Still, on a continental scale, “there are approximately 33,000 cases of cervical cancer and 15,000 deaths” per year.
From 9 years old
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suspects that the papillomavirus is responsible for “more than 90% of cancers of the anus and cervix, regarding 70% of cancers vagina and vulva and more than 60% of penile cancers”. Vaccination, strongly “recommended” in Luxembourg since 2007, is therefore offered free of charge to girls and boys between the ages of 9 and 14 and from the age of 15 for immunocompromised young people and homosexuals.
This European Vaccination Week, from April 24 to 30, initiated by the WHO, aims more broadly to raise public awareness of the importance of vaccination in the prevention of certain infectious diseases and the protection of the population.
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