As an expensive vaccination for human papillomavirus (HPV, the virus leading to cervical cancer) is aggressively marketed by the private sector, the government has no intention of including the vaccine on its schedule of free health services, and Malta remains the only EU member state not to have participated in a pan-European vaccination research project which concluded last year.
The Vaccine European New Integrated Collaboration Effort (VENICE) project was launched in January 2006 with the aim of establishing a European network of experts with experience of working with national immunisation programmes. Two different vaccines were monitored in the course of the study: one for HPV, and another for rotavirus, a disease mostly affecting babies. Ironically, the first ever VENICE meeting was held in April 2006 in Malta… which went on to become the only EU member state not to actually return the questionnaires, or to nominate a national “gatekeeper” as required of each project participant country.
The VENICE findings were published in March 2007, after which four countries – Austria, Germany France and Italy – adopted a national HPV immunisation programme of their own.
The report further states that: “In two countries (Greece and Slovakia), an expert advisory committee has recommended including HPV vaccination in the national immunisation schedule but no formal decision has yet been taken by the national authorities. Nine countries answered that the issue was currently under examination by their national immunisation advisory body. In seven states, such investigation is planned for the future, while in the remaining five the question was not under consideration at all.”
Malta numbers among the last five, and efforts to establish whether the government has reconsidered its position on the HPV vaccine have so far proved futile.
Questions sent to Health Minister John Dalli last week were returned with the following, anomalous answer: “Tell her (sic) politely that we have nothing to add.”
Meanwhile, additional questions regarding Malta’s non-participation in the VENICE programme remain to date unanswered, with a Health Ministry spokesman explaining that all answers have to be vetted by the minister in person.

Women pressured to purchase vaccine
As the Health Minister continues to politely avoid the issue, women in Malta are being exposed to a ubiquitous billboard advertising campaign urging them to protect themselves from HPV.
Among the methods advertised is immunisation by means of Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline), a three-injection vaccination programme. At around €190 a shot, the total cost of immunisation works out at between €500 and €600.
One woman who has already taken two of the three shots feels that the product is overpriced. “I was helped by family, otherwise I would not have been able to afford it,” she told MaltaToday in confidence.
The same woman also feels that the advertising campaign is to a point misleading: “The campaign omits to mention that the HPV virus is only the preliminary stage of cervical cancer and that often it takes years for the virus to develop into the illness. If well monitored and treated, a woman who has contracted the virus does not run a serious risk of it developing into cancer. Of course, taking the vaccination is a reasonable precaution; but like all effective advertising campaigns, this one has relied on scaremongering.”
National immunisation programmes abroad usually target females before they become sexually active. In Italy the free vaccine is given to girls aged 12; in France, to 14-year-olds.
For this reason, advertising campaigns are often aimed at parents of teenage girls: a fact which can only add to a widespread perception that the health authorities’ inaction may be playing nicely into the hands of the private pharmaceutical sector.