This file photo shows a building housing Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Tokyo. (Mainichi)

       TOKYO -- Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has decided to allow women born between fiscal 1997 and 2005 -- when it stopped actively promoting vaccinations to prevent the cervical-cancer causing HPV -- to be vaccinated free of charge.

       Under the plan approved by a government vaccination subcommittee on Dec. 23, people born in the period will be eligible for free vaccinations for three years starting April 2022.

       In April 2013, HPV vaccinations were classified as regular vaccinations that girls from the sixth grade of elementary school to the first year of high school can receive free. But immediately after, there were streams of reports of symptoms such as pain across the entire body among inoculated girls. As a result, the health ministry stopped actively recommending the vaccines in June the same year.

       But with the government having now decided to resume recommending HPV vaccinations in April 2022 after a suspension period of over eight years, it began considering measures for people who missed the opportunity to be vaccinated. The measure will cover women born from fiscal 1997, who were in the first year of high school when recommendations were suspended, to those born in fiscal 2005, who are first-year high schoolers in the 2021 academic year.

       Girls born in fiscal 2006 and 2007, whose regular vaccination period ends within three years counting from April 2022 will be eligible for free vaccination in fiscal 2023 and 2024.

       The subcommittee decided to ask local bodies to send vaccination vouchers to eligible people and call for them to be vaccinated.

       (Japanese original by Sooryeon Kim, Lifestyle & Medical News Department)

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