Human papilloma virus (HPV) is the name for a group of viruses that affect your skin and the moist membranes lining your body, for example, in your cervix, anus, mouth and throat.
HPV is a common and highly contagious infection, with over three quarters of sexually active women acquiring it at some time in their lives.
There are more than 100 types of HPV. Around 40 types of HPV infection can affect the genital area.
Infection with some types of HPV can cause abnormal tissue growth and other changes to cells within your cervix, which can lead to cervical cancer or genital warts which is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the UK & Ireland
Other types of HPV infection can cause minor problems, such as common skin warts and verrucas.
See here for more details.
Females aged 9-26 and males aged 9-15 can now avail of a course of vaccinations to protect them against Human Papilloma Virus, the virus responsible for over two-thirds of cases of cervical cancer in women and the vast majority of genital wart infections in both sexes.
The national Cervical Cancer Vaccination programme is adminstered by Point of Care and you can find full detail son their website here
Any of our female patients can have this testing in our medical centre. It is the same type of test as the normal cervical smear test and can be done at the same time as your smear test. If you are not eligiable to have a free smear under the Cervical Check programme you can opt to have a smear test done privately.
The cost of these tests is not covered by the Medical Card.
Unfortunately, for our male patients who may have concerns, it's not quite so straightforward as there is no routine test for HPV in men.
Our advice would be to book in for a routine consult with your doctor to discuss your concerns or symptoms as it may be possible to avail of specialist testing in individual cases.
|
HPV Test |
€100 |
| HPV Test & Private Smear | €140 |
| Private Smear only | €90 |