New Delhi
Actor Poonam Pandey is not being considered as the brand ambassador of the government’s national campaign to spread awareness on cervical cancer, Union health ministry officials said on Wednesday. The clarification came after sources said Pandey is likely to be the face of the campaign and she and her team are in talks with ministry officials.
Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her interim budget speech said the government will encourage vaccination of girls in the age group of 9-14 years to prevent cervical cancer. The Union health ministry had last month said it is closely monitoring incidence of cervical cancer in the country and is in regular touch with states and various health departments on this.
India is home to about 16 per cent of the world’s women, but accounts for about a quarter of all cervical cancer incidence and nearly a third of global cervical cancer deaths. Indian women face a 1.6 per cent lifetime cumulative risk of developing cervical cancer and one per cent cumulative death risk from cervical cancer, officials had stated.
Currently, the Serum Institute’s made-in-India vaccine against cervical cancer, CERVAVAC, is available in the private market for about Rs 2,000 per dose. MSD Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck Sharp and Dohme (known as Merck and Co, Inc in the US and Canada) continues to sell its HPV vaccine Gardasil 4 (quadrivalent vaccine) in India which is currently priced at Rs 3,927 per dose.
