The Taunggyi Township public health department began to administer HPV vaccines on October 20 to more than 3,000 girls aged nine to 10 in an effort to prevent cervical cancer.  

“If cervical disease turns into cancer, it’s really difficult to cure. The death rate is so high,” Dr. Moe Tun, head of Taunggyi’s public health department, told SHAN.

According to Dr. Moe Tun, girls aged nine to 10 have the highest level of resistance to the disease, and is the best time to administer the vaccination.  

More than 3,500 girls will get the HPV vaccination in Taunggyi Township.  

HPV, a sexually transmitted infection, is linked to cervical cancer, the fourth most common cancer in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO reported that in 2018, there were a total of around 570,000 diagnoses of cervical cancer globally. More than 311,000 women died of the disease that year. The vast majority of these women were in developing countries.