“Infection sexuelle responsable de 90% des cancers du col de l’utérus chez les ados au Luxembourg”

The Ministry of Health takes advantage of European Vaccination Week, which begins this Monday, to emphasize the importance of awareness of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which is mainly transmitted through direct contact with an infected person during sexual intercourse. “It is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world and affects both women and men,” remind Luxembourg health authorities.

It usually disappears on its own, but it can also produce precancerous lesions that can develop into cancer. “Cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer after breast cancer in women aged 15 to 44 in the European Union,” notes the Ministry of Health without specifying the figures in the Grand-Duchy. Nevertheless, at the continental level, “there are about 33,000 cases of cervical cancer and 15,000 deaths” per year.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suspects that the human papillomavirus is responsible for “more than 90% of anal and cervical cancers, about 70% of vaginal and vulvar cancers, and more than 60% of penile cancers”. Vaccination, strongly “recommended” in Luxembourg since 2007, is therefore proposed free of charge to girls and boys between the ages of 9 and 14 and from 15 years of age for immunocompromised young people and homosexuals.

This European Vaccination Week, from April 24 to 30, initiated by the WHO, aims more broadly to raise public awareness of the importance of vaccination in preventing certain infectious diseases and protecting the population.