A turning point looms in the fight against cervical cancer
resulting from hepatitis B, cervical cancer has a strong claim to be the world’s deadliest vaccine-preventable disease. Most illnesses for which effective vaccines for children are widely available no longer threaten public health. But in 2020, 14 years after the advent of a jab that prevents almost all cases, cervical cancer still killed 342,000 women. If take-up of the vaccine rose—a goal about which there are new grounds for hope—this cancer could be nearly eliminated.
Fully 95% of cervical-cancer cases are caused by human papillomavirus , a group of sexually transmitted viruses. So common isthat nearly every sexually active person contracts a strain. Most never know, because the body flushes it out within two years. In some cases, however, the virus lingers, forming lesions on women’s cervixes that can become cancerous.
This deadly condition is the second most common cancer among women aged 15-44. In rich countries, five-year survival rates are around 70%. In the poorest ones, which account for 90% of deaths from cervical cancer, less than one in five women with the disease are thought to survive.. But take-up has been slow. In the rich world, the share of people vaccinated by age 15 ranges from zero in Japan, which only resumed recommending the jab in 2022, to 81% in Britain.
However, two other roadblocks are now being cleared. In December the World Health Organisation said that a single dose of thejab provided full protection. This will vastly expedite vaccination efforts. In addition, firms in both China and India are now producing their countries’ first domesticjabs. The Serum Institute of India plans to make 200m doses in two years at prices well below the current market rate. Its output should supply India’s first national vaccination effort.
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