Monday marks the start of "Pre-Teen Vaccine Week" and Immunize Nevada is teaming up with the Washoe County Health District to try to convince parents to vaccinate. But this time it's for a different vaccine than we've been hearing about lately.
This week they're focusing on the Human Papillomavirus or HPV for short.
Some strains of HPV carry an increased risk of certain cancers that can be hard to detect until it's too late. So health officials are encouraging parents to get their 11 and 12-year-olds started on the vaccine now. "I think that almost all parents would look at that and say 'I can prevent my child from having cancer, of course I'm going to do that.' But they just aren't aware of it,” says Julia Ratti.
The HPV vaccine is a three- part series of shots... best started when kids are 11 or 12.
According to the CDC, Nevada has a very low rate of kids completing the series at just 27.4% of girls and 7.3% of boys. Ratti says part of the complication with convincing parents is that HPV is a sexually transmitted disease. And when kids are just 11 or 12 it can be uncomfortable for parents to think about their future sex lives. "The fact of the matter is, almost all of us, if not all, are sexually active later in life and you can get this shot when they're young, when they're not sexually active, that prevents cancer when they're an adult, and now is the time to do it."
HPV is related to thousands of cases of cervical cancer and mouth and throat cancers every year.
According to the CDC, the vaccine is close to 100% effective at preventing infection with those strains.
