Rwanda National HPV Vaccination Programme

Rwanda's national program to vaccinate girls against human papillomavirus, the first program of its kind implemented by any African country, launched in 2011 when Rwanda's Ministry of Health partnered with the pharmaceutical company Merck to offer the Gardasil vaccine to all girls of the appropriate age. In its first year the program vaccinated more than 92,000 girls in grade six of primary school, roughly 12 years old, with a three-dose course, achieving 93 percent coverage within twelve months of the campaign's start; a catch-up campaign in 2012 and 2013 additionally reached older girls in the third year of secondary school. From 2014 the program received support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and reverted to targeting 12-year-old girls specifically, and in 2015 Rwanda switched the regimen from three doses to two doses given six months apart. The program was delivered largely through school-based campaigns without disrupting Rwanda's existing routine immunization activities, a result researchers attribute to the country's already well-resourced Expanded Programme on Immunization, and by 2018 more than 1.1 million girls had received a first dose since the program began, corresponding to 98 percent of the eligible target population.