Nigeria's Catholic Bishops Caution against Dismissing “doubts, fears” Over HPV Vaccine

They express their awareness of the fact that people with and without medical knowledge have concerns about the vaccine, which reportedly aims at protecting girls against cervical cancer. 

The concerned agencies "should equally prioritize providing vaccine acceptors with the adequate and proper information they need to make informed choices about a given intervention," CBCN members add.

They urge Nigeria’s NPHCDA and other agencies to promote chastity education and healthy sexual lifestyle choices as a prevention strategy against sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HPV.

The Catholic Church leaders go on to underscore the need for parental consent before the vaccine is administered to the targeted girls.

In 2019, members of the Kenya Catholic Doctors’ Association (KCDA) expressed their opposition to the HPV vaccine that the Kenyan government was to launch on 18 October 2019 in the Coastal City of Mombasa.

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In an interview with AMECEA Online News, Dr. Wahome Ngare, a gynecologist and KCDA member said that like gonorrhea, Syphilis, and Hepatitis B, HPV is “spread because of behaviour and what primary healthcare providers should do is to enlighten the community about the need for self-discipline.”

“People need to be made aware that they are getting such disease because of their sexual habits. Therefore, it is best for unmarried people to wait until marriage and if married then being faithful to one’s spouse is paramount,” Dr. Ngare added. 

The Kenyan medic also told AMECEA Online News, “Those who end up getting infected by the human papilloma virus, 99.85% of them end up without cancer. This is because the human body destroys the virus naturally. This is a medically documented fact. Just natural immunity, no drugs, no vaccines. This leaves us with 0.15% of the population that develops persistent HPV infection. Now, persistent HPV infection is known that if it continues in 8 to 10 years, then one may develop cervical cancer.”

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.