Cathal Crowe
Question:435. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Health if the decision to run a HPV vaccination clinic in a school is a Government policy or individual school policy. [49020/21]
View answerThursday, 7 October 2021
Questions (435)
Written answers
The HPV vaccination programme is a schools-based immunisation programme. The roll-out of the programme is the responsibility of the Health Service ExecutiveThe programme for the academic year 2020/2021 was paused during the first few months of 2021 due to school closures and redeployment of staff to the COVID-19 immunisation programme.The inputting of uptake information for the schools-based programme was also delayed due to redeployment of administrative staff. However, Community Healthcare Organisations (CHOs) have reported that the vast majority of second level schools had their first dose of HPV vaccine delivered between October and December 2020.All CHO areas have plans to recommence their schools programme for 2021/2022 which will see continued roll-out of the HPV vaccine to the target cohort.
In addition, as this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.