The CDC considers the Human papillomavirus (HPV) as the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. It is estimated that greater than 79 million people are infected with this virus, ranging from those in their teens to early 20’s at the time they were infected. About 14 million people become newly infected each year. HPV is so common that almost every person who is sexually-active will get HPV at some time in their life if they don’t get the HPV vaccine.Most cases of HPV are self-resolving but when HPV does not go away on its own, it can cause health problems like genital warts and cancer. It is important to know that the types of HPV that result in genital warts are not the same as those types involved in cancers.
Some health consequences that are caused by HPV can be prevented by getting the HPV vaccines. However, the current recommendations for the vaccine are on average around ages 11 or 12 years (although one can start as early as age 9 years) and for everyone through age 26 years. Therefore, parents are having to now make decisions about getting this additional vaccine to help protect their children. Moreover, the vaccination is not recommended for individuals older than age 26 years because it is shown to be less beneficial; but, depending on individual risk/benefit assessment some adults age 27 through 45 years, who are not already vaccinated, may decide to get the HPV vaccine. I think that it’s great to now have some additional options to make informed decisions about life-saving vaccines.
The HPV vaccine can halt transmission of the virus and can reduce or eliminate developing various life-threatening cancers later in life. I think that HPV vaccination makes sense because it could prevent more than 90% of cancers caused by HPV—this could save potentially an estimated 32k+ cases ever year from ever developing. This is because before HPV vaccines were introduced, thousands of women and men were plagued with the typical genital warts caused by HPV every year. In reality, this accounts for about one in 100 sexually active adults in the U.S. has genital warts at any given time. Additionally, despite screening and treatment options improving, tens of thousands of women living in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cervical cancer, and more than 4,000 women die. I believe that the vaccine does bring a lot of hope. In fact, since the introduction of the HPV vaccine in 2006, incidence of HPV infections have already started to decline; particularly for the HPV infections with strains 16 and 18, that most readily lead to eventual cancer diagnosis, dropped significantly (~80%+) among girls ages 13-19 and by 66 percent among women ages 20-24 up to 8 years after vaccination. These results are according to a recent systematic review. Additionally, since nearly all cervical cancers are caused by HPV infections, the vaccine is helpful because cervical cancer may take decades to develop after initial HPV infection. Therefore, getting vaccinated against HPV infection is your best protection from cervical cancer.
Microbiology and You 