A TEENAGE girl has blasted health chiefs for denying her a cancer immunisation jab – because she is nine days too old.

Simone Green, 18, has been refused the injection because she was born on August 22, 1990. Only those born after September 1 that year are eligible for the HPV vaccine, which protects against cervical cancer.

That has meant she has missed out on the treatment, which protects against the sexually-transmitted human papillomavirus, while many fellow pupils at Beauchamps High School in Wickford, where Simone is in the last year of the sixth form, have taken up the opportunity to get immunised for free on the NHS.

Now the only way she can get immunised against a disease which kills 1,000 women in the UK every year, and which shot to prominence following the death of sufferer Jade Goody, is to pay £400 to have it done privately.

Simone, who lives with her grandparents in Rayleigh, said: “I wanted to get it done as soon as they announced it was available in January, and they originally told me I could have it done in July.

“But now they have told me I am a week-and-a-half too old.

“I know other 18-year-olds who have had it done. I just think it is ridiculous they are not letting me have something which could be the difference between life and death.

“It’s disgusting, really.”

Nick Johnson, a spokesman for the Department of Health, stood firm, but added the age limits were being kept under review.

He said: “If women believe the vaccination could be beneficial to them, they can seek advice from their GP as to whether it would be clinically appropriate.

“Their GP may prescribe the vaccine if there is an exceptional clinical need.”

For more information visit www.immunisation.nhs.uk, or call the helpline on 0845 6023303.