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Girls aged 12 to 13 are to be vaccinated to help protect against cervical cancer, the Scottish Government has said. A "catch-up" immunisation campaign for older teenage girls aged up to 18 is also planned to be launched from next September.
A Scottish Government spokesman said the vaccination campaign will extend over several years.
By the time it is completed, it is hoped around 120,000 girls in Scotland under 18 will have taken part. Some estimates of the cost of each jab have been put at ?250, resulting in a potential bill of ?30 million for the country.
Similar vaccination measures have been announced by the Department of Health in England, with a catch-up campaign starting for girls older than 13 from Autumn 2009. But health chiefs in Scotland are hoping to bring forward vaccinations for girls older than 13 a year in advance.
The Scottish Government spokesman said: "We are still looking at how this will work, but we want to move to the catch-up campaign as soon as possible. We are hoping to start it in the autumn of 2008, but it might be that it stretches out over a few years."
The girls will be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted infection human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV causes around 70% of cases of cervical cancer, which kills more than 1,000 women in the UK each year.
The jab, which is not compulsory and is most likely to be delivered in schools, is expected to revolutionise the approach to beating the disease. It is thought the vaccine will be given in three doses over a six-month period.
Earlier this year the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended that vaccines should be introduced routinely for girls aged around 12 to 13 years. Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon also committed the new government to introducing the HPV vaccine, subject to an independent review of the costs to the NHS.
In Scotland the lifetime risk of a woman developing cervical cancer is one in 124. During 2004, 282 new cases were diagnosed and 102 women died of cervical cancer in the country.
