Meeting of the Parliament 25 March 2014
I am delighted to speak in this debate on the Scottish immunisation programme. I echo the minister’s remarks that vaccination is one of the most effective and valuable public health interventions that we can deploy to protect people against serious diseases and to prevent the spread of disease.
In the short time that I have I will focus on some of the newer developments in Scotland’s vaccination programmes and the contribution that they will make to improving and protecting the country’s public health. We know that the comparatively recent vaccine against meningitis C has shown significant benefits, so I very much welcome the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s decision last Friday to recommend the introduction of a vaccine against meningitis B for children at two, four and 12 months of age, and the Scottish Government’s commitment to work with the health department to ensure that the vaccine can be introduced as quickly as possible into Scotland’s routine childhood immunisation programme.
I was approached some time ago by a constituent in Dumfries and Galloway whose teenage son has a rare immune system disorder called mannose-binding lectin deficiency, one of the characteristics of which is an extreme susceptibility to a range of serious diseases including pneumonia and meningitis. The joint committee’s decision on a meningitis B vaccine was of vital importance to my constituent and her son and, as members can imagine, is very welcome for not just this family in particular but, I am sure, other families across Scotland.
The HPV vaccination programme was introduced back in August 2008 under the previous health secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, for 12 to 13-year-old girls in S2. It protects them from two types of human papilloma virus that can cause 70 per cent of instances of cervical cancer. Since its introduction, uptake in Scotland has exceeded 90 per cent and we now see significant decreases in the prevalence of HPV among young women as a result.
The public health benefits that the vaccine is delivering are worth highlighting. Last year, I met members of NHS Dumfries and Galloway’s research and development team at the Dumfries and Galloway royal infirmary, who have been working on a programme to tackle the problem of cervical smear test defaulters. The national audit of invasive cervical cancer found that approximately 71 per cent of women who developed cervical cancer had not had a smear test in the preceding three years. In March 2012, the number of women in Dumfries and Galloway who were unscreened or underscreened stood at 6,100.
The team tackled the problem using a variety of approaches, including sending out self-sampling kits to women who regularly failed to attend smear test appointments. The overwhelming majority of women who undertook self-testing said that they would participate regularly in the screening programme if they could use that method in future.
Cervical cancer is the only form of cancer against which we can effectively vaccinate and we know through the work of various health boards—including NHS Dumfries and Galloway—that many women are not being regularly screened. As with all cancers, early detection is crucial, but prevention is far better than cure, which is why the HPV vaccine is such a significant step forward.
The Scottish Government immunisation programme makes a vital contribution to the promotion of good public health in Scotland. Ultimately, we owe our thanks to the NHS staff who promote and deliver the vaccination programmes, as their efforts have kept vaccination uptake levels in Scotland very high indeed. Although we cannot be complacent, I put on record my thanks to those staff for helping us to keep the killer diseases of the past at bay and making us a healthier country for the future.
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