Vaccinations against a virus that causes cervical cancer will soon be given to pre-teen girls.
From September, girls aged 12-13 will be given a jab that prevents the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV). The Government hopes the programme will save 400 lives every year.
In England alone, the project could cost up to £100 million a year and a catch-up programme for girls under the age of 18 will start in 2009, costing as much as £200 million a year.
Scotland and Wales have announced similar plans to introduce a vaccination and Northern Ireland will also be carrying out a programme for 12-year olds, but is yet to finalise the plans.
It is estimated that 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV. Each year, 3,000 women are diagnosed with the cancer and as many as 1,100 die from the disease. It is hoped that HPV jabs will revolutionise prevention of the disease.
The vaccine, which will cost around £300 for a full course, will be given in three injections over six months.
The HPV virus is most common amongst sexually active females aged between 18 and 28, infecting 80 per cent of women in some form by the age of 50. In the majority of cases, the infection will clear up on its own, but some will have continued infection.
Girls currently over the age of 16 will not be eligible for the programme but they will be able to have the vaccine privately. The injections will most likely be given in schools, but primary care trusts are responsible for planning how to deliver the vaccinations.
Two vaccines have been developed: Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, and Gardasil, made by Merck and Sanofi Pasteur, which has already been approved in 76 countries. The companies will now compete for the contract to provide the vaccinations, after the Government announced that only one is likely to be chosen. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has not made any recommendations over which one should be used.
Experts have said that the programme will be more expensive than other childhood immunisations and the results will not be seen for many years, but would eventually be worth the cost.
Alan Johnson, the health secretary, told the BBC: “As a society we need to do more to prevent disease and not just treat it.” “Now, more than ever before, we need to make the NHS a service that prevents ill health and prioritises keeping people well.”

Providing there is no pre-existing condition, cancers - including cervical cancer - are covered under private medical insurance policies to enable policyholders to benefit from prompt treatment at a time of their choosing in a private hospital of their choice.

Hot on the heels of recent stories of dirty hospitals raising the death toll, newspapers are reporting how vercrowded, filthy wards, shortages of nurses and financial difficulties led to 1,176 people contracting Clostridium difficile, according to the Healthcare Commission.
Over two and a half years, the infection outbreak at three Kent hospitals contributed to the deaths of 331 patients. The Healthcare Commission said that the infection – a severe form of infectious diarrhoea - probably or definitely caused the deaths of 90 patients and it was a contributing factor in the deaths of a further 241.
The number of deaths turned out to be far higher than originally declared to the media as the commission found cases where patients were probably killed by the superbug, but it was not reported on their death certificates.
A report by the commission said that some patients should have fully recovered from their initial illness but they caught the C Diff bug and died.
The report said there had been “significant failings” in infection control at the hospitals, causing the worst outbreak of a lethal superbug ever recorded in the NHS.
Dirty bathrooms and overflowing commodes were found at the Kent and Sussex, Pembury and Maidstone hospitals. Nurses were also too busy to clean their hands and equipment properly and infected patients were frequently moved in an attempt to meet waiting time targets.
The commission also said that managers at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust were too preoccupied with hitting Government targets and had been cutting nursing staff and closing beds to help balance the books.
In May 2004, the trust’s chief executive, Rose Gibb – who has recently resigned - told the BBC she had known about the problems with cleanliness for six months, according to The Telegraph.
The report has now been sent to the Health and Safety Executive and Kent Police, who will decide if there are grounds for criminal charges.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson has also told the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust to withhold payments to Ms Gibb, pending legal advice.

Again, another story hits the national papers on the subject of the increasing risk of superbugs in hospitals. prompting individuals and families to take up health insurance and ensure that they are able to use a private hospital in the unfortunate situation of having to have medical treatment.

A recent investigation from the Healthcare Commission revealed appalling standards of hygiene at three hospitals in Kent, which allowed the killer bug Clostridium Difficile to directly cause the deaths of 90 patients.
Between 2004 and 2006, the bug infected more than 1,100 patients in hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, contributing to the deaths of 331 of them.
The commission found the standards of service were akin to those in the Third World, including dirty, understaffed wards and beds crammed together. Patients with severe diarrhea were even told to “go in the bed” as nurses were too busy to take them to the lavatory, according to the Independent.
Sadly, this is not an isolated case. In June, 99 NHS Trusts admitted to the Healthcare Commission that they were failing to meet hygiene standards and, according to the News of the World, many hospitals in England have twice as many cases of the killer C Diff bug as the Kent group, reports the News of the World.
The superbug is estimated to kill around 4,000 patients every year, yet some hospitals are able to control the spread. The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch hospitals scored the lowest in the ranking for C Diff infection, thanks to their “clean your hands” campaign.
Many people think doctors may be to blame for the increase of superbugs, as they believe hospital staff have dismissed the problem as an inevitable complication of medical care.
Hospital targets may also be the cause of the problem. According to a report by the Government’s chief economist, Professor Barry McCormick, the most crowded hospitals had MRSA rates 42 per cent higher than average.
Proper cleaning however, is not enough to solve the problem of superbugs. C Difficile, for example, is mainly caused by over use of antibiotics. The treatment kills the ‘healthy’ bacteria in the gut, allowing the C Difficile bacteria, which are normally controlled in the body, to spread. Unfortunately increased cases of MRSA have resulted in increased prescriptions of antibiotics.
Last week the health department announced screenings of all patients for MRSA, which will mean those carrying the infection will be isolated on admission, but these measures will not provide the complete solution.
Only when hospitals monitor antibiotics prescriptions, increase hygiene standards and ensure all staff wash their hands between patients, can the problem of superbugs be eliminated.
The occurrence in private hospitals of these super bugs is substantially less than in public hospitals, which is part of the reason that individuals choose to use private hospitals for their medical treatment. Many families are planning for such eventualities by taking out private medical insurance to ensure that they get their treatment promptly and that they are treated in a private hospital to minimise the risk of contracting MRSA or C Difficile, for example.