 You're welcome back. It's still breakfast on plus TV Africa and right now we want to talk about health and the The thing we're going to be looking at is why HPV vaccines matter in preventing cervical cancer We're lucky to have a doctor here in the house. Dr. Fajiro, Chinya and Woko is the GM, CEO Niger Solidarity Support Fund Good morning and welcome to the program. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for having me Let's begin with what HPV vaccines are before we go into other issues Okay, HPV vaccine are the vaccines that help prevent HPV infection And HPV is human papilloman virus The HPV virus is one of the leading causes of cervical cancer in women It is a virus that infects the more cost membranes and the skin And it results in genital wax and cervical cancer It's one of the is the most common sexually transmitted infection And it's oftentimes Esymptomatic until it causes a disease. So you can't know just by looking that you a woman has HPV virus cervical cancer is the second highest Cancer in Nigerian women It is recorded that over 60 percent of women that have cervical cancer die of cervical cancer And it is common. It's HPV virus is presently Occurring in one in four Nigerian women. So about 25 percent of Nigerian women are infected with the virus And about 60 million Nigerians are at risk As women, Nigerian women are at risk of HPV Especially women between the ages of 15 to 39. Several factors account for this such as early Intercourse early intercourse in a girl child multiple sexual partners lack of access to health facilities and things like cultural beliefs results in this um In this magnitude of HPV and the spread of HPV And we know that a lot of the new cases of HPV now are found among girls and women in rural community So it is very important that we take this as a serious health Risk and prevent it by rolling out the HPV vaccine So the national primary healthcare development agency Which is the agency in charge of vaccinations in Nigeria are set to roll out the HPV vaccine for the girl child Ages nine to 14 years from next week in Nigeria And NSSF is supporting in the reason awareness for that roll out and encouraging girls and Parents to ensure that their girls get these vaccines that can prevent HPV infection Reducing the burden of care for cervical cancer in Nigeria Let me just understand. I'm not a doctor, but you said it's sexually transmitted yet It is a it is a case for girls or for women. Yes. What happened to the boys? How is it sexually transmitted if the boys don't have it a beautiful question? So the boys Can have or have the infection But they don't have the disease So they are carriers, but it doesn't result in the disease because again, they don't have They don't result. It doesn't result in the disease called cervical cancer because they don't have a cervix So they are carriers and they need to also be vaccinated But currently this vaccine this first Roll out of the HPV vaccine by the government is for the girls At the second or the Subsequent rule out who would give to the boys where we sort of try a gene with the highest risk The highest risk for now is the girls and then we would of course we need to stop the transmission from the boys Okay Now, um, who is it that can access this vaccine? I'm talking we know it's the girls that you are concentrating on but Do they have an age limit or something? Can a full grown woman have it or it has to be a child or a girl of adolescent age? Okay, so, um, we saw that the most people that are risk are the women between ages 15 to 39 At risk for HPV So those age group pre and during the age group can get the vaccine and they can get the vaccine If you are above 14, you can get the vaccine but at a cost to you But this current rule out is at no cost to the girl child because it's born the cost has been borne by the government so and is to vaccinate the girl child earlier on before they become at risk for HPV infection So it is between ages nine to 14, but any woman Because we all for large risk can get the vaccine the vaccines are readily available in health facilities So they can go and get the vaccine, but this current age is because we don't want Finances to be an impediments to getting the vaccine and protecting the girl child Okay, so you're talking about a present rollout. How long will it take? Is it For 12 months people do they need to rush to go get it Or it's going to be there for a very long time And this this parent rule out is going to be there for a long time But currently it's going to start next week and it's going to be There for the next one month But I think subsequent rule out will increase on other age groups and other gender So for this current one is starting and it's for women and until they they pop Those girls it will not stop. So it's going to be continuous. It's not I don't there's no need to rush and it will be Taking to girls at where there are schools, you know, communities at home So it's not a pain of queuing in the facilities going to be the dust step of the girls It's well, but I think it's it's important for them to rush The more you stay away the more you are at risk. You never know where you're going to get it But apart from being sexually transmitted, is it possible to get it some other way? No, it has to be sexually transmitted virus Okay, well, how would you measure the level of success of Administrating this vaccine so far, you know in previous rule out if there were there were or in previous Interventions that you had So the virus has an efficacy of over 60 percent worldwide So the vaccine Excuse me has an efficacy of over 60 percent. So it is um, it is efficacious. It is it can prevent the The I'm not even worried about the efficacy of the vaccine. I'm worried about the the response of the Optic to getting it. So for the optic. Um, well, um, other countries are very different from Nigeria This is the first time it's been rolled out in Nigeria So we we if we have anything to go by we'll go by the roll out of other Vaccines in Nigeria in other countries. They have different beliefs. They have different culture. They have different health seeking behavior Nigeria we are peculiar We are currently also struggling with routine immunization for children that has been in Asistant for a long time. We still have um barriers vaccine Existences that that's as led to the poor optic of routine immunization So if we go by that we have a lot of work to do So get make sure that the girl child gets the HPV vaccine So, um, it is something that has been taken note of by the government and by partners And it's something that all the lessons that we've learned in previous rule out of different vaccines We're putting it in place and that's why I said that it is now a community roll out Not just a health facility roll out. We're going to the communities or coming to the media We're raising awareness and nsf Which I represent raising awareness for this vaccine by ha by Launching a youth led campaign and that's why we're here to speak about it today. We are using all media social media Traditional media Public health professionals health facilities Every media because we know that there is that resistance for vaccines in country But in your experience what has been the challenge like what what are what have been the greatest challenges in trying to Evangelize the people to accept vaccines and especially this one And in my experience I would say is mistrust. I think there's no trust for um The government and there's no trust for Um, public health professionals. There's no trust for maybe the medical professional Um, and and it's as a result of several other things like our cultural beliefs So sometimes cultural beliefs are adherence to medical practices and religious beliefs are adherence to medical practices So there is this mistrust. There's this suspicion There's also poor health-seeking behavior people just don't Go to the hospital when they are sick. They believe in just self-medicated Yes, that is so there are all Several factors why is there is hesitancy, but you know with education and educating People and behavior will change it takes time. It takes consistency It takes a knowledge transfer and then it takes time We are here to make sure that we breach every knowledge gap So that it's easy for people to make decisions that are good for their health Let's just see the gravity of this cervical cancer First of all, if it's full-blown and you see you say you may not notice it until it's full-blown if it is full-blown Is it still uh treatable? Of course, it is treatable, but the success rate of treating cancer as we know You know what it's like, right? cancer Cancer survivor rates are not too very great especially at least especially in Nigeria Well, even all the world is not um, especially when not detected early So again, it depends on how early was it detected before it had spread to other parts of the body Then you and then what is there in terms of what are Are they able to pay for cancer treatment? Cancer treatments are expensive Do we have health insurance to cover cancer treatments? So the burden on the on the health on the health system is a huge financial burden That's why it's important to prevent treatment is possible treatment is available Treatment is expensive and the outcome of the treatment You know, there's no guarantee you can survive it. I just wanted it to go out there that It prevention like they say is better than cure. So why not we prevent it now? So The plan for this rollout is to reach a target audience of uh about how many? For now the rollout is to reach um All the girls within this age group nine to four ten Nine 14. Yes in Nigeria. That's the way. We don't have a limit The rollout is to reach all but we know that from previous experience We will not get all now and that's why the rollout is staggered We would will continue phase two and phase three and continue mopping up the people that haven't gotten the vaccine The vaccine that is being rolled out now is just is a is a unidose vaccine So you get one dose and that is all so again sometimes because vaccines have multiple doses people get tired Of coming back to take another shot But this is just one shot and and Nigeria we take to get this one shot so that we don't have full-out rates From completion of the so the mother comes to the clinic to get to give the child that vaccine and She goes empty-handed You know, I'm just saying I'm just saying a young mother maybe of 25 2025 comes with a child and then he doesn't she doesn't get anything I don't think so anyway, there's no opportunities for the person So when is this next rollout that we're expecting? We are not very setting now I would want to put a date to it But it's going to be what we will learn from the Failures or success of this rollout and then we will strategize for the next one Right now it has not been fixed But if we go by how we've done several routes, it's usually It's usually subsequent and it follows very closely like the covid vaccine. It follows very closely So it will follow closely. Okay. Well, um We are part of the system that you use to do your let me still use the word evangelism So if we were to talk to people on your behalf, what should we be telling them? Okay, first is that what you can do is help raise awareness for this vaccine optic And like I've told you we struggled with vaccine optic in Nigeria from polio vaccines to hepatitis b vaccines Every kind of vaccine we struggled in Nigeria because there are lots of Deep-seated mistrust For modern medicine if I'll put it that way and and just to say that Other parts of medicine have also suffered, you know, not just vaccination But what I will say to you is to encourage the public to raise awareness and one way To raise awareness is to join the nssf campaign that we have launched for the hpv vaccine And this campaign is an awareness to action campaign It is on our website at www.nssf.com VV contest It is a contest calling on Nigerian youths and why we are saying Nigerian youths is because We have over 60 million Nigeria falling into the age category of 15 and 39 So we want to target those people to join voices with you in raising awareness that these vaccines are preventive and they prevent diseases that Are high-bodied diseases cancer cervical cancer high-bodied diseases. They prevent deaths from these diseases So it's better to get the vaccine. So we want them to raise awareness join us Join the contest nssf contest awareness to action contest go on our website And see how you can join and lend your voice be a change maker Don't just sit be a change maker advocate because it could be your sister. It could be your niece It could be your nephew, you know that eventually may need this intervention So please join join us and raise awareness. Okay. So was that for me or for the Nigerian populace? Okay, talk to the Nigerian populace Okay, if you're Nigerian and you want to Help advocate for a great cause I want you to join us to advocate for HPV vaccine for the teenage girl child by joining our contest the awareness to action contest Via the website www.nssf forward slash HPVV contest I say that again www.nssf forward slash HPVV contest So raise awareness for this vaccine every girl child needs to be vaccinated with HPV vaccine That has a high potential of preventing HPV infection and cervical cancer. Thank you Okay, whenever we hear cancer, we know how dangerous that can be. So this is a clarion call. Everybody needs to be Concerned about Spreading the gospel as it is and then make sure that everybody keys into it. But let me just point this out She was saying n s s f in case you didn't get the Alphabet's right and for Nigeria then as solidarity support fund So when you go to the website that is the n s s f that she was talking about and then it is HPV vaccine That's why she was calling HPVV. I'm sure of that So go to the website See how you can join in the campaign and make sure that our women are safe women from cradle to to the grave let them be safe because They're under world Okay, thank you so much. Dr. Thank you for having me on the show this morning And we've been talking with Dr. Fajero Chi Nye Woko GM CEO of Nigeria Solidarity Support Fund And we're calling on every Nigerian to join in this campaign And this eventually is how we're going to wrap it up on the show this morning until we meet again Same time on Monday. My name is Nyam Gul Agadji. Bye for now