Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government what specific advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation statement in July 2018 it used to decide that the boys' HPV vaccination programme should not be implemented via a catch-up vaccination programme.

Current status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 2 December 2019

I asked Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer to write to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to seek their expert view on the policy of no HPV catch up programme for boys and the rationale behind this.

The JCVI responded on 26 June confirming that they would be content not to make a recommendation that a catch up programme should be introduced on the basis that:

• the success of 10 years of the girls’ programme has established good levels of herd protection which means that there would be limited additional benefits to be gained from a catch-up programme in boys;
• the priority should be establishing the extension of the routine programme to include adolescent boys and ensuring high uptake in boys whilst maintaining the high uptake in the girls;
• under standard economic methodology a catch up in older boys would not be cost effective.