Starting on December 3rd, 2019, Costa Rican parents should take their girls to whom the 1st dose of Papilloma vaccine was already administered to ebáis to receive the 2nd dose of the vaccine and, thus, complete your scheme.
Of course, it must have been at least 6 months after applying the 1st dose to receive the 2nd one. Girls who were vaccinated on June 3rd can be vaccinated again from December 3rd, and so on. This 2nd dose is necessary to complete the scheme and has protection against 4 papillomaviruses, which are the cause of cervical cancer, one of the most common cancers among women in our country.
The coverage of the 1st dose runs with high success: the registration, as of September 30th, 2019, is 81% of the target group. This means that 29,450 doses have been placed throughout the country.
However, vaccination is continuous, as part of the institutional scheme of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), so the Primary Care Technical Assistant (ATAP) takes any opportunity, within its activities, to detect girls of ten years without vaccine and proceed to immunize them. For example, girls who went to school the day the school visit was made.
Next year, both doses will be applied at school: one at the beginning of the school year and another at the end. And the target group will continue; girls turning 10 during 2020.
For Dr. Leandra Abarca, from the CCSS immunization program, it is important to demonstrate the great work that local and regional levels do in vaccination.
“The primary care technical assistants capture 10-year-old girls, educate their parents, answer questions, and apply the vaccine every day, according to the national protocol endorsed”, says Dr. Abarca.
She also points out the importance of CCSS workers’ commitment to vaccination processes, since they all strengthen the activities that continue to maintain excellent vaccine coverage to protect the population.
FAQs
What happens if girls recently turn 10 years old and have not yet been vaccinated?
– By 2020, these girls will still be 10 years old and will be vaccinated during the school visit. If a father does not wish to wait for next year’s school visit to vaccinate his daughter, the procedure to follow is as follows:
1. A father should approach the ebáis that corresponds to him and tell the nurse in charge of vaccines that he wants his daughter to have the 1st dose at that health center.
2. Ebáis will carry out the management procedure to request the vaccine from the medicine warehouse.
3. Parents will be notified on the day the vaccine arrives in the school, in order to take their daughter to vaccinate.
What happens if I lost my vaccination card?
You must go to the ebáis where it belongs to have a replacement, and so take the girl to administer the 2nd dose. It is necessary to carry a valid identification of the girl to be vaccinated.
Next year, will both doses of the papilloma vaccine be applied at schools?
Vaccination of girls who will be 10 years old in 2020 will be applied at school, both doses; one at the beginning of the year, and the other one at 6 months on. This will coincide with the application of the tetanus vaccine.
