Ninety per cent of Oxfordshire's 12 year-olds girls have taken up the offer of a new vaccination against cervical cancer at the first schools to be offered the jab.

Oxfordshire Primary Health Trust say they are already more than halfway through the vaccination programme, which it estimates will save at least four young lives in the county.

There have been reports in other parts of the country of the jab being boycotted, with parents still fearful of vaccines in the aftermath of the MMR controversy. But the trust says that there has been a strong take-up, with the first part of the vaccination programme already completed in South Oxfordshire and in some Oxford schools.

More than 3,500 girls aged 12 and 13 have been offered the vaccine, as part of a nationwide schools programme against a virus that can cause cervical cancer. It will give protection against strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV), considered to be responsible for 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer, which kills more than 1,000 women a year in Britain.

So far about nine out of ten girls have had the jab, with a number of schools recording a 100 per cent take-up.

But the Government advertising campaign to raise awareness led to complaints from some families, who say they have received too little information too late to make a decision. In a trial last year, a fifth of parents refused permission for the injection.

Anna Hinton, a principal in the Oxfordshire Public Health Directorate, said: "The response in Oxfordshire has been overwhelmingly positive. Community health nurses began going into Oxfordshire schools in the middle of September. All schools will have been offered the vaccine by the end of October."

She said the second dose would be given after half term, with the final one six months later in the year. But some families have expressed anger that parents who oppose the vaccination for this young age group can be over-ridden by their child's agreement.

Gill Green, a retired children's nurse, who lives in Abingdon, said she had initially been pleased that her grand-daughter would be offered protection from HPV.

But she said: "I now share the increasingly deep concern of parents whose 12-year-olds are being asked to make a lifetime decision about a new vaccination which has an unknown long-term effect on their health.

"Although the children have been informed that there is a rare possibility of anaphylactic shock, they have not been advised of the other published side-effects, which include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and abdominal pain."

Some parents have complained that the vaccination might make girls less likely to have smear tests and more inclined to have sex at a young age.

But the Oxfordshire PCT said the drug had been rigorously tested in clinical trials. Parents had been provided with leaflets explaining possible side-effects such as a sore arm and stinging.

In November the vaccine will be made available to 17 and 18 year olds in Oxfordshire, with GPs contacting thousands of young women later in the year. GPs will be writing to young women born between September 1990 and the end of August 1991.

A "catch up" programme will also be launched so that by 2011 all girls aged up to 18 will have had the opportunity to have the vaccine.

Jabs, an advisory group that aims to promote understanding about immunisations, has been contacted by anxious parents about the programme.

Its spokeswoman, Jackie Fletcher, said: “I have some concerns that at present young girls and parents cannot make an informed choice about this vaccine as the NHS leaflet gives misleading information.

"The Cervarix vaccine has been tested on a limited number of people, however, in my opinion the real trials begin when a vaccine is rolled out through the general population."