At the Karen Leung Foundation, we are constantly striving to fill the gaps of current medical services, and advocacy and lobbying is a big part of how we strive to better the health of women in Hong Kong.

Last month, in March 2018, we attended the Cancer Strategy Meeting at the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. At the meeting, we strongly urged the government to provide universal HPV vaccine coverage for all appropriately aged girls in Hong Kong, through a fully government funded school vaccination program. According to our research, we have found that providing the vaccine, free of charge, at the school setting significantly increases the uptake rate of the vaccine.

On April 3, the Community Care Fund announced the expansion of the coverage of the cervical cancer vaccination scheme to benefit more girls.

As the program stands, criteria for eligibility are listed as below:

For free vaccination:

Girls between the age of 9-18 who receives:

1. “Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme”

2. “School Textbook Assistance Scheme”

3. Whose family receive the “Working Family Allowance Scheme”

For those who receive a partial subsidy for:

1. Half grant under the “School Textbook Assistance Scheme” with a co-payment of HK $100 per dose.

There is still a long way to go to provide universal coverage; however, we feel that the government is taking the right direction in providing a larger coverage of HPV vaccines for Hong Kong’s female population. For more information, please refer to the HKSAR Government Press Release   

On 20 April, the Family Planning Association alerted Hong Kong residents around the shortage of the vaccines and thus the fact that they would only provide cervical cancer vaccinations to Hong Kong residents going forward. For more information, please also see the article from the Hong Kong Free Press.