Rajshahi divisional commissioner Dewan Muhammad Humayun Kabir said on Thursday that about 99 per cent women who got married before turning 18 suffered from cervical cancer, a disease that claims lives of thousands of women in the country annually.
He came up with the observation while speaking at a press conference in the Rajshahi City Corporation building over a month-long human papillomavirus vaccination campaign.
Dewan Muhammad Humayun Kabir, also the RCC administrator, said that after the Covid-19 period, child marriages in the country increased to 41 per cent in 2024 from 31 per cent in 2022, and the rate of child marriages is the highest in the Rajshahi region.
鈥楢ccording to the reports we have, about eighty per cent of women suffering from cervical cancer face divorce in their early life. It is a big challenge for us,鈥� he said, urging all to encourage their daughters and sisters aged between 10 and 14 years to take the human papillomavirus vaccine.
The divisional commissioner said that if they could protect the health and potential of all girls, and reduce the burden of cervical cancer in the country, they would get a healthy generation in future.
RCC chief health officer FAM Anjuman Ara Begum said that students studying in Class V鈥揑X were given a single dose of the free vaccine on October 24 in their respective educational institutions while those girls who are out of educational institutions aged 10鈥�14 years could take the vaccine by visiting one of the sixty vaccination centres from October 25 to 31.
Among others, RCC chief executive officer ABM Sharif Uddin and secretary Mobarak Hossain addressed the press conference.