BERLIN — Some three million teenage girls in Germany are to be urged to take part in a mass vaccination campaign to help to stamp out cervical cancer. The go-ahead for the jabs - in effect Germany’s first nationwide anticancer immunisation - is likely to nudge other EU countries, including Britain, to consider similar steps. Germany is Europe’s largest market for medicines and pharmaceuticals. The course of three injections, costing €150 (about £100) each could mark the beginning of the end of the smear test. In Germany, the Standing Commission for Vaccination is recommending that all girls between the ages of 12 and 17 be vaccinated against the Human papilloma virus which causes precancerous and cancerous lesions. About 70 per cent of cervical tumours are caused by the papilloma 16 and papilloma 17 viruses. Related Links * Should Britain follow suit? The vaccines, marketed under the names Gardasil and Silgard, have been available in German pharmacies since last year. But the green-light from the Commission, made up of experts from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, has transformed the economics of mass vaccination: state insurance companies will, from next week,, […]