Two HPV vaccine shots enough for preventing cervical cancer: WHO

It has now become possible to reach a greater number of girls in developing countries with an HPV vaccine to prevent most cases of cervical cancer, after the World Health Organization's expert advisory group said that two shots of vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV), would suffice rather than the three doses currently recommended.

Two shots would offer sufficient protection to girls so long as they had it before they reached the age of 15, the WHO said.

Three shots of vaccine – either Merck's Gardasil or GSK's Cervarix – had been incorporated into immunisation schedules in affluent countries.

The WHO's strategic advisory group of experts (Sage) committee on immunisation, said that there was now enough evidence to rule that two shots would do the job.

The decision is expected to make it easier to roll out immunization programmes and the take-up in poor countries would be much easier which was where it mattered the most.

About 80 per cent of cases of cervical cancer are reported from the developing countries and given that the prospects for women who developed it were poor, with little treatment available, that was also where most deaths occured.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (Gavi), which has already been funding pilot projects in some low-income African countries welcomed the news. There was also huge enthusiasm for the immunisation programmes, with more countries than expected wanting to take part.

Meanwhile, each year around 2,000 to 2,500 cases of cervical cancer are reported from England, the most common cancer in women under 35. The cause has been determined as infection with high-risk human papillomavirus (HR HPV) types 16 and 18 in around 70 per cent to 80 per cent of cervical cancers.

A study conducted by Public Health England and presented at the Society for General Microbiology's Annual Conference revealed a reduction in these two HR HPV types – which were included in the HPV vaccines used – in sexually active young women in England.

Between 2010 and 2012, over 4,000 samples were collected from young women receiving a chlamydia screen under the National Chlamydia Screening Program in England.

Prior to the HPV immunization program introduction, a survey showed around 1 in 5 sexually active women aged 16 to 18 were infected with at least one of the two HPV types included in vaccines.

In a  similar survey conducted after the introduction of the programme the prevalence had fallen to 1 in 15 young women.