The Health Promotion Administration (HPA) yesterday confirmed that it would provide free human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations to seventh-grade girls from the middle of December, as an infectious disease doctor said that the bivalent vaccine is about 90 percent effective in preventing cervical cancer.
HPVs are a group of more than 100 types of viruses that are extremely common worldwide and transmitted mainly through sexual contact. At least 13 types can cause cancer and nearly all cases of cervical cancer can be attributed to HPV infection, with two high-risk HPV types — 16 and 18 — causing about 70 percent of cervical cancers and precancerous cervical lesions.
The HPA said cervical cancer is the seventh-leading cause of cancer deaths among women in Taiwan and the WHO has identified the primary target group for HPV vaccination as girls aged nine to 14.
Ninety-one countries have included HPV vaccinations in their national immunization programs, as has Taiwan in its 2025 health and welfare policy white papers, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday.
The vaccines have been purchased and would be distributed to local governments after the Food and Drug Administration finishes inspections, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Arthur Chen (陳宜民) on Oct. 24 asked why the government purchased bivalent vaccines — which protect against HPV16 and HPV18 — but not the advanced nonavalent vaccine — which protects against nine types of HPV, including HPV16 and HPV18.
The HPA yesterday asked National Taiwan University Hospital Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases director Huang Li-min (黃立民) to explain that bivalent vaccines are safe and effective.
Huang said HPVs can be classified into different species, with HPV16 belonging to the A9 species and HPV18 to the A7 species, and a total of 10 types of HPVs under the two species (A7 and A9).
While the government-funded bivalent vaccine protects against HPV16 and HPV18, it also offers cross-protection against infection with other HPV types in the species A9 and A7, he said, adding that studies suggest the cross protection is about 90 percent effective against precancerous cervical lesions.
More than 270 million HPV vaccines have been distributed since they were approved and the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety considers them “extremely safe,” he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods