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The boys will be eligible from the start of the new school year, 11 years after girls were first vaccinated.

The jab protects against human papilloma virus, which causes many oral, throat and anal cancers.

One man, Jamie Rae, says he went “to hell and back” during his treatment for throat cancer caused by the virus.

“All the things you enjoy are gone. I couldn’t speak or eat for months afterwards, and I was just skeletal by the end of it,” he says.

‘I was left with no saliva to eat’

Jamie, from Falkirk, had never heard of HPV when he found a small, disc-shaped lump growing in his neck.

After being diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer in 2010, aged 44, he had a tonsillectomy and then six weeks of chemotherapy and six of radiotherapy.

He needed therapy to retrain his muscles so he could talk again - and he was left with very little saliva, making eating and even drinking water a real challenge.

All that took its toll, Jamie says.

“I became very depressed and it was two years before I started to feel normal again.”

At that point he set up a foundation to raise awareness of the virus that had caused him so much pain.

How do boys get the vaccine?

Boys aged 12 and 13 in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, along with boys aged 11 and 12 in high schools in Scotland, will be offered the vaccine in secondary schools from the start of the next school term.

Because health policy is devolved in the UK, timings and arrangements will vary slightly across the different nations.

Girls aged 12 to 13 have been offered the HPV vaccine since 2008 in the UK.

Two doses are needed to be fully protected. Protection lasts for at least 10 years, although probably much longer.

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