surely the HPV vaccinations won't go ahead?

[RaspberryCoulis]

Just before the holidays I had a permission letter for my child in S1 to have a HPV vaccination. This year they're doing boys and girls, which has changed since my other kids were in S1 and it was just girls.

Don't get me wrong, I think the HPV vaccination is hugely beneficial and DS will be having it. But there are other priorities in early 2021, right? Surely the healthboards won't be sending out teams to give 12 year olds the HPV jag when they could be vaccinating against covid?

Who knows, buts it’s good to be keeping routine healthcare going too

We’re in England, my daughters 2nd HPV jab was done at a catch up clinic held in a GP surgery (not our own) she should have had it in April and it was done in July.
The HPV jab here is done by the school nurses and a private company that also administered the flu jabs.

I have a friend who works in school health. There was talk of her doing covid and not HPV but I don’t think she knows what she’s going back to yet.

HPV is really complex to be honest. I would rather have Covid than HPV!!

My friend works for a vaccination team and they are planning on going in.
She wants to be deployed to Covid but the commissioners want the childhood vaccines to carry on, at the moment.

My friend works for the school immunisation team and she told me yesterday that they were talking about setting up drive through for children to receive HPV jabs especially those who are waiting on second dose

Where would they be administering the HPV if the high schools are closed until mid January? The teams do it within the school I believe.

They will have to wait until they are open again, or they can do community clinics.

I can see the uptake rates being very low for some areas if they resort to drive thru or community clinics. I know in my children’s school they need to send out reminders constantly for consent forms to be returned.

Our school nurse did them and will this year.

My DS was meant to have his in school earlier this year when the schools were closed but they ran the vaccinations at a local Health and Social Services building instead. This building was usually used as a day centre but was closed. I thought it was good to keep this vaccination going.

I'm in England. My daughter had her first HPV vaccine pre covid but subsequent cancelled so they will all need to start the course again as too long has passed since the first vaccine. I suppose they will have to carry on doing them or the backlog will be immense.

They have to keep up with other vaccines, surely. Covid doesn't make HPV - cervical cancer - any less serious.

@CeeceeBloomingdale

I'm in England. My daughter had her first HPV vaccine pre covid but subsequent cancelled so they will all need to start the course again as too long has passed since the first vaccine. I suppose they will have to carry on doing them or the backlog will be immense.

You never ever start a course again. She will just need the second one.

Posted this specifically in Scotsnet and get replies from people talking about England and school nurses. Healthcare is devolved....

I know childhood vaccinations are really important and I'm totally on board with DS getting his HPV. But the second dose can be given 6months to 2 years after the first. So it makes more sense to me to say can it for this year, then next year do all S1 and S2. If we're serious about getting the Covid vaccine into as many people as quickly as possible, we need those community health people doing that.

Also on the drive through - the flu vaccine for Primary last year was very late, we signed the consents to have it in school just after October week and it wasn't rolled out until December. Rather than having it in school, we were asked to drive the kids to a local High School gym, on a Saturday morning just before Christmas. Understandably, uptake was far lower.

HPV is really serious and there’s some interesting threads on here about it. There’s a lot of misinformation about it. HPV never clears it something that lies dormant and resurfaces. Personally that trumps Covid rather than having to have extra smears because the hospital would be concerned of any changes. Sometimes this leads to having procedures too such as LLETZ (a small part of your cervix being removed).

Don't know (yet) how it works with HPV, but at our school the flu immunization went ahead as normal just before Christmas.

Consent forms go out in August/September in my area. The last week of immunisations is in December sometime. This is because they only have a small team but have a huge area to cover. My kids were vaccinated in November, someone’s got to be last unfortunately.
I think they should go ahead with HPV. It’s just going to create a huge backlog of they don’t.
There are bank nurses that can do covid vaccinations.

@FippertyGibbettper Oh really, a nurse friend said it would be starting again as so long between vaccines.

@RaspberryCoulis No need to be so rude, it's relevant to people south of the border who may wish to discuss it too. Just skim past the comments you don't like eh? I just read active topics, not look at specific boards.

My son is in s1 and I have the form ready to go back to school, it only arrived the day they stopped for Christmas.

We are in Scotland and DS in S1 last year went into school in June to be given it by the school nurse. This was before Covid vaccine though so not sure what plan will be now. I hope DD3 gets his pre-school vaccinations soon though!

Pre school jags have been happening near us as quite a few have been off on a Friday for them.

School flu sprays were done in Sept while the nursery ones have varied.

DS is on catch up list as he was meant to get it last March (a few days before the lockdown but had to SI). He is currently S2 but said he wants to get the vaccine. It should get rolled out. Routine healthcare is just as important.

Scheduled for next month last I heard in our local authority.