Anna Jičínská must have felt like a movie star.

Flash bulbs went off and reporters were close at hand as the 15-year-old took a seat in a doctor's office recently to become the first recipient in the Czech Republic of a new vaccine against cervical cancer — the second-deadliest disease affecting women worldwide.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine in June. Thousands of other young Czech girls are due to be vaccinated during the next few months, even though the treatment is expensive: 10,500 Kč ($498), which insurance does not cover.

"I feel very lucky to have this chance," Jičínská said.

The drug, sold under its commercial name Silgard, is manufactured by Merck & Co., Inc., and protects women from two main strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is a germ responsible for 99.5 percent of cervical cancer cases.

The sexually transmitted virus infects about 80 percent of those who come into contact with it, but it develops into cancer only in a small percentage of infected women.

Jičínská admits it didn't take much effort by her mother, Kateřina, to persuade her. Every year, more than 1,000 Czech women are diagnosed with the disease and about 400 die. Worldwide, cervical cancer kills 290,000 women annually. Merck says the vaccine could eventually reduce deaths to 90,000.

The shot is supposed to last for at least 10 years, though experts are unsure of when or if it needs to be repeated after that.

"Reading about the dangers of this disease and the [mortality] rates, I think the vaccine is simply a breakthrough," the elder Jičínská said.

Differing opinions

Given that recent studies suggest viruses might cause most cancers, the vaccine could be a harbinger of cancer prevention. "This is quite simply the first vaccine of its kind: a vaccine against cancer," said Eva Daňková, a Prague immunologist. "Imagine if we had vaccines for all types of cancer."

Experts differ on whether they think the vaccine should be part of the compulsory roster of shots girls receive just before puberty.

Although women of any age can receive the vaccine, it is primarily intended for women under the age of 26, before they become sexually active. Some experts, like Lukáš Rob, head of gynecology at Motol Hospital, think all 12-year-old girls should receive the vaccine as a mandatory shot.

"With that, a new generation with a remarkably lower incidence of cervical cancer would kick in," Rob said.

Others argue that a more effective and cheaper solution would be to introduce laboratory screening, nonexistent in the Czech Republic but common in the United States and Western Europe.

Screening would have a faster impact, they say. "The vaccine won't help women who suffer from [HPV] or cancer now. The only solution is organized and audited screening that could lower the infection rate 80 percent in a few years — not decades, as with the vaccination," said Vladimír Dvořák, head of the Czech Gynecological and Obstetrics Society.

High Czech rates

Because there's no screening, the cervical cancer rate in the Czech Republic is three times higher than in Western Europe, where the rate has plummeted thanks to widespread use of Pap smears and proper equipment to detect early signs of cancer.

The situation in the Czech Republic is as dire as it is in the republics of the former Soviet Union and other developing countries.

Dvořák considers the vaccination to be a "historic chance of primary prevention of cervical cancer." But because he wants a fast solution to what he calls "the sad situation in the Czech Republic," he sees screening as the best bet.

Also, the vaccine does not guard against all viruses that cause cervical cancer. So women in the United States, for example, are encouraged to be screened periodically — even if they have been vaccinated.

A special commission of the Health Ministry has spent four years researching ways to bring cervical cancer screenings to Czech hospitals.

"When members turned to ministry representatives, asking them to finance a screening program, they were told there is no money available," Dvořák said.

As for subsidizing the vaccine, the Health Ministry seems skeptical. "Silgard is a new vaccine, the effectiveness and benefits of which have yet to be analyzed," said Health Ministry spokesman Tomáš Cikrt.

"Only based on that can we make a decision as to whether and to what extent the vaccine can be subsidized."

The vaccine is divided into three doses, each costing 3,500 Kč. That's more than the $120 a dose in the United States, which in August became the first nation to offer the vaccine. But for Kateřina Jičínská, money was never the issue.