PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has begun the training of staff members and nomination of focal persons in education and other relevant departments to ensure access to most of the target population in the province-wide HPV (Human Papillomavirus) vaccination campaign scheduled to begin November.

The Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) of the health department, in collaboration with the education department and UN agencies, has planned to target girls from 9-14 years to safeguard them against cervical cancer, according to officials at EPI.

They told Dawn that the HPV would be administered to 2.9 million girls, including 1.6 million in schools and 1.3m out-of-school population.

The officials said that two vaccination strategies would be adopted, including one for school-based girls and another in communities for those not going to schools.

They said that more focus was being laid on awareness to pave way for smooth-sailing of the campaign as the province had already been reporting refusal against polio and other vaccine-preventable ailments.

The officials said in order to scale up public awareness, campaigns had been planned at both provincial and district levels for which a mechanism had been introduced to develop a strong coordination.

They said provincial and district-level steering committees had been notified.

The officials said focal persons from the education and other relevant departments had also been notified to create demand for vaccination that safeguard girls from cervical cancer, a critical public health challenge in the country.

Gynaecologists at the medical teaching institutions said that cervical cancer was the third most common cancer in women and the second most common among the age group of 15 to 44 years.

They said around 5,000-6,000 new cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed annually and about 3,000 women died from the disease which was thoroughly preventable through vaccination.

The gynaecologists said that they received women with cervical cancer at the OPD with most of them being at the critical stage of the disease, and that vaccination was the only way to protect girls.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2026