A study to assess the feasibility and acceptability of delivering a human papillomavirus vaccine to adolescent girls has resulted in 'encouraging' results.

The prospective cohort study, published in the British Medical Journal, involved 2,817 girls aged 12- and 13-years-old attending 36 secondary schools in the Greater Manchester area of the UK.

Delivery of the bivalent vaccine was at zero months, one month and six months over one school year.

Vaccine uptake was 70.6 per cent for the first dose and 68.5 per cent for the second dose, however researchers admitted that maintaining the vaccine schedule was "challenging" as 16.3 per cent (dose 1) and 23.6 per cent (dose 2) of girls missed their vaccination day and had to be offered alternative appointments.

"Delivery of the first two doses of HPV vaccine to adolescent schoolgirls is encouraging, but the success of the vaccination programme depends on high coverage for the third dose," researchers wrote.

An additional challenge for researchers was gaining parental consent. Parents were asked to approve vaccination or, if they refused, to give their reasons. The main reason for parents' refusal of vaccination (36 per cent) was insufficient information about the vaccine and its long term safety.

Some 20 per cent of parents in the study refused the vaccine citing no reason, prompting authors to conclude that more work is required to understand the motives for refusal and the practical barriers to providing consent.

Uptake was significantly lower in schools with a higher proportion of ethnic minority girls or higher proportion of girls entitled to free school meals.

No serious adverse events were reported.

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