Speaking to the press, the Minister of Health, Sílvia Lutukuta, said that this is the first time that Angola has introduced the CECOLIN vaccine into the public sector, manufactured by the INOVAX laboratory and pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as highly effective and safe.
Sílvia Lutukuta said that in November she will begin a major vaccination campaign, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education, stressing that Angola has a population of around 2.1 million children to whom she needs to administer this vaccine.
The Minister of Health assured that this is the first batch of a total of 2.2 million doses that Angola will receive.
"As always, we have to anticipate and work on prevention, because cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women, after breast cancer (...) and every year we have more than 300 diagnosed cases that, unfortunately, arrive late at our institutions and have been a cause of grief and pain within our families and especially among young women," she said.
The minister highlighted that in November, for seven days, a massive campaign will be carried out in more than 1,500 schools and then reach children who are not in the education system.
According to Sílvia Lutukuta, this vaccine will be part of the national vaccination calendar from 2025.
Data from the Angolan Institute for Cancer Control indicate that in Angola, in 2022 alone, 915 cases of cervical cancer were treated, around 1.7 percent of all cancer cases, with authorities estimating that the real incidence of cases of this type of cancer in the country is probably even higher due to diagnostic limitations.
Sílvia Lutukua appealed to Angolan families and churches to mobilize "against this great evil", highlighting that "the vaccine is safe, life-saving, and very effective, it is a single dose and has been very well studied, and has no side effects".
"We have a target population, worldwide, that has already received this vaccine, millions and millions of people who have already received this vaccine without side effects, so bring your girl aged nine to 12, allow her to be vaccinated at school, because this vaccine really does save lives", she advised.
In turn, the Minister of Education, Luísa Grilo, said that the department deals with school health, includes vaccinations and other activities with the Ministry of Health.
"Mobilizing teachers is not very complicated and the students are at school, each teacher is a mobilizer of their target group, so it is not very complicated for us to do this", she said.
Luísa Grilo said that the awareness-raising work will begin with committees of parents and guardians at schools, and then move on to class assemblies with the students themselves, showing the advantages of getting vaccinated against cervical cancer.
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