A major vaccination campaign to protect girls against cervical cancer is under way across the district.

Pupils at Rhodesway School in Allerton, Bradford, Holy Family Catholic Secondary School in Keighley and Titus Salt School in Baildon were the first to be given the new vaccination.

Over the next six months the programme will see about 3,200 girls aged 12 and 13 across Bradford and Airedale given three jabs each to provide them with protection against two types of the human papilloma virus (HPV) which cause 70 per cent of cervical cancers.

Dates have been set for all secondary schools in the district to deliver the vaccination programme before April next year.

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women under 35 years old. About 3,000 women are diagnosed with the disease in the UK each year and, of these, around 1,100 will die.

The Department of Health has provided primary care trusts across the country with £8.9m to deliver the new national immunisation programme, which it estimates will save the lives of about 400 women in the UK each year.

Planning for the campaign got under way earlier in the year with training for school nurses, who give the vaccination.

Administration staff have also been busy throughout the summer arranging written consent from all parents and guardians of Year Eight girls.

The team work paid off yesterday when the first Year Eight girls – those born between September 1, 1995 and August 31, 1996 – began the vaccination programme.

Taylor Fores and Madiha Jahangir, both 12, were two of the girls to have the vaccination at Rhodesway School.

“I didn’t even know the needle had gone in,” said Taylor. “I think this vaccination is a good thing and I was happy to have the vaccination today.”

Likewise, Madiha did not suffer any ill effects. “It didn’t hurt at all,” she said, before heading back to lessons.

School nurse Elizabeth Hawkes said that out of the 72 girls eligible for the vaccination at the Oak Lane school, 59 were vaccinated yesterday.

Ten girls had failed to return the consent form and three girls were absent from school.

“It was a really good response – better than anticipated,” said Elizabeth. “I have only had one parent who did not want it done for their daughter because they said they wanted to wait until she was older and did not feel she had enough information about the vaccination at the moment.

“We held assemblies for the girls and talked about how important it is to have the vaccination and how it will protect them later in life from the most common cause of cervical cancer.”

The girls were also provided with a Q&A sheet on the vaccine, explaining what cervical cancer is, how the HPV virus causes cancer, what the vaccine provides protection against and how important it is. The leaflet points out that while the age of consent is 16, the vaccination is given at the age of 12 and 13 to enable girls to get the most from the vaccination.

“If it is given after a young woman is sexually active it is possible she could already be infected by HPV,” the leaflet points out.

Along with Elizabeth, three other school nurses, Sonia Hardcastle, Louise Holbeck and Julie Arcuri, and school care officer Joanne Claridge and nursery nurse Julie Marriott, made sure the girls at Rhodesway were vaccinated quickly and safely.

Four stations were set up in a room at the school to enable all the girls to be given the jab in just one hour.

“It can sting a bit and the girls may get a sore arm afterwards,” said Elizabeth. “If they do not feel well afterwards they can take a paracetamol. The girls have a ten-minute rest after the jab so we can make sure they are all right.”

Sonia added: “We only had four that were a little nervous but once we had the chance to talk to them and calmed them down they were okay. Now we have to make sure the girls have all three shots to make the vaccine effective.”

A catch-up programme will start in autumn next year, when girls born between September 1, 1991, and August 31, 1993, will be offered the vaccination and then in autumn 2010 there will be immunisations for girls born between September 1, 1993, and August, 31, 1995.

Vaccinations will not be offered to women aged 18 and over as the Department of Health has been advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation this would not be cost-effective.

Shirley Brierley, public health consultant at Bradford and Airedale tPCT said: “Our priority is to protect girls in their early teens.”

The new vaccination will protect against the two high-risk HPV types that cause more than 70 per cent of cervical cancers. But it will not protect against all the HPV types that cause cervical cancer or other sexually transmitted infections, so young women should still practice safe sex and use condoms.

Dr Brierley said: “It is important for women to continue to have cervical smear tests too.”

The campaign has been backed by Karen Butler, a mum-of-four of Horton Bank Top, who went through the ordeal of being diagnosed with cervical cancer earlier this year and had to undergo a hysterectomy.

She is determined her daughters, 12-year-old Emily, Grace, 14, and Ashley, 16, will be immunised.

“I would recommend anything that could stop my girls going through what I went through,” she said. “I definitely want them to have the immunisation.”

l Anyone with queries about the vaccination can speak to their school nurse, GP or practice nurse, visit their family planning clinic, go to immunisation.nhs.uk or call NHS Direct on 0845 4647 or visit nhsdirect.nhs.uk