The United States will spend close to nine million US dollars to vaccinate girls in American-affiliated Pacific islands against cervical cancer starting next month.
A regional epidemiologist, Dr Jean-Paul Chaine, says the new HPV vaccine will be for girls 10 to 18 years of age in the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau.
The vaccine prevents the types of genital human papillomavirus that cause most cases of cervical cancer and genital warts.
The vaccine is given in three shots over six-months.
Dr Chaine says the HPV vaccine programme was supposed to be launched a year ago, but hit funding snags that delayed it.
Some of the four island states in the Federated States of Micronesia will launch a vaccine drive as early as next month.
In the Marshall Islands, cervical cancer was the second most prevalent cancer in 2007 and is estimated to affect women at a rate six times that in
the United States.