By Kelley Weiss
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-590638.mp3
Kansas City, MO – The Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City will help low-income and uninsured girls and women get vaccines to prevent cervical cancer. KCUR's Kelley Weiss reports.
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The Health Care Foundation's $2 million grant will give about 5,000 girls and women in the Kansas City area - ages 9 to 26 - access to a Human papillomavirus, or HPV vaccine. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that causes most cervical cancer; nationally, according to the Centers for Disease Control, about 4,000 women a year die from this type of cancer.
Dr. Otis Latimer, Swope Health Services medical director, says it's important to offer the more than $350 vaccine series free to high risk patients, like low-income women.
Dr. Otis Latimer: "We have to address these issues of HPV such that we can cut into the rates of cervical cancer."
The Health Care Foundation, which supports KCUR's health coverage, will pay for the vaccine for females in both Kansas and Missouri. Eligible Missouri patients can start getting the vaccine in August.
Funding for health care coverage on KCUR has been provided by the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City.
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