On Friday, April 26, 2019, the KLF team attended the meeting for "Overall Strategy for Prevention and Treatment of Cancer" at Legislative Council (LegCo) of HKSAR. During the meeting, the Panel on Health Services as well as representatives from the HKSAR Government listened to cancer-related issues brought forward by different community stakeholders.

Last year, we submitted an advocacy paper to recommend a school-based HPV-vaccination approach combined with the current Hong Kong Childhood Immunisation Programme (HKCIP). In the same year, the HKSAR adopted this approach and announced the commencement of a school-based HPV vaccination programme from the school year 2019/20.

Following the past success, we submitted a further written motion to address the remaining gaps of the primary prevention of cervical cancer, the key points are:

•   Starting from school year 2019/20, the HPV vaccine will be included as part of the Hong Kong Childhood Immunisation Programme (HKCIP). However, it will only be provided to girls in grade 5 (Age 11)

•    The HPV vaccine is most effective to be administrated before girls become first sexually active (Age 19 for Hong Kong females)

•   Misconceptions and rumours around the HPV vaccine are also barriers influencing the vaccine uptake rate

Therefore, we suggested to the government to 

•    Expand the current pilot HPV vaccination programme to a top-up programme covering all girls aged between 12 and 19

•    Add an education component to the in-school programme either by adding it to the current sex education or seeking Public Private Partnership (PPP) with NGOs

•    Take the lead to promote the correct attitude and knowledge towards vaccinations

For more details, please follow the links below:

Video for the meeting (59:00 to 1:02:20),

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-F1-2dubR8

Submission for the meeting (English Version Only)

https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr18-19/english/panels/hs/hs_scp/papers/hs_scp20190426cb2-1247-6-e.pdf