Vaccination rate for HPV is in decline, but so are infections

Among female teenagers ages 14-19, 4vHPV-type prevalence was down 64% and declined 34% among women ages 20-24 compared to comparable NHANES data from the “pre-vaccine era” (2003-2006), reported Lauri E. Markowtiz, MD, of the CDC, and colleagues.

“A minority of females in this country have been immunized, but we’re seeing a public health impact that is quite expansive”, said Dr. Amy Middleman, of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Now, the new study adds the first evidence that also shows the impact of the vaccine on the prevalence of HPV in young women in their 20s, they said.

As per the American Cancer Society, 4,120 women will die from cervical cancer this year. Researchers combined results from the latest two, carried out between 2009 and 2012, and found that about a third of 14 to 19-year-old girls had received all three doses of the vaccine.

“Cervical cancer prevention in the US, though, relies on the routine participation in the screening program as neither Gardasil nor Gardasil9 [the HPV 9-valent vaccine] can prevent more than 50% of all CIN 2/3 disease which is one of the primary aims of our screening and early detection programs”, Harper, who was not involved with the research, wrote to MedPage Today.

The first HPV vaccine was approved in 2006.

Kansas ranks last in the nation in the percentage of girls who have received the HPV vaccine, and Missouri isn’t far behind.

“The vaccine is more effective than we thought”, said Debbie Saslow, a public- health expert in HPV vaccination and cervical cancer at the American Cancer Society.

And despite her efforts – and the efforts of many other pediatricians over the past decade – in allaying those concerns, national HPV vaccination rates are significantly lower than those of other adolescent vaccines, with fewer than half of girls ages 13 to 17 fully vaccinated.

And, among young women ages 20 to 24, the prevalence decreased by 34 percent over that same time period, the researchers found.

The authors suggest that a “herd effect” may be in play, where even unvaccinated people are protected from a disease if many people around them are vaccinated.

And in some countries, the vaccine is either mandatory or at least offered at school, its cost covered by a national health-care system, making administration more streamlined and comprehensive.

There are signs that rates of HPV vaccination are on the rise. In 2011, recommendation became popular to vaccinate boys. Some also believe that having their children vaccinated will somehow give them free rein to have sex or will promote promiscuity, though studies have shown that’s not the case.

“More and more, it’s becoming clear that this is a cancer prevention vaccine, and if we could get 100 percent of our boys and 100 percent of our girls vaccinated, we could probably eradicate the worst HPV types”, Feldman said.

Markowitz said there may have been some hesitancy early on from both parents and medical professionals in recommending the vaccine. “But we don’t really discuss how people become infected with every vaccine-preventable disease”.