GENEVA - Two multinational drugmakers are teaming up with global health groups in an attempt to protect millions of girls in the world's poorest countries from deadly cervical cancer. Starting with pilot programs in eight Asian and African nations, the ambitious project aims to inoculate more than 30 million girls in more than 40 countries by 2020. The endeavour was announced Thursday by the GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership that's worked with drugmakers to deliver vaccines to treat fatal childhood illnesses in the world's most impoverished regions.

EDMONTON - Alberta is looking at including boys in a free school vaccination program that protects girls from a virus that causes cervical and other types of deadly cancers. The HPV vaccine was first offered to Grade 5 girls in the province in 2008. Since then, the province estimates about 61 per cent of girls between the ages of nine and 13 have received the shots. This summer, Alberta's chief medical officer of health and other officials are to meet with their counterparts across Canada in Ottawa to discuss the medical effectiveness of the vaccine when given to boys.

A growing number of US parents oppose doctors' recommendations to vaccinate teenage girls against human papillomavirus (HPV), the main cause of cervical cancer, a study said Monday. Parents cited reasons such as believing their child was too young or not sexually active, concerns about safety and side effects, or lack of knowledge about the vaccine, said the study in the journal Pediatrics. In 2008, 40 percent of parents surveyed said they did not want the HPV vaccine for their daughters. In 2010, that figure rose to 44 percent.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. U.S. childhood obesity fight sees some success: group