Less Is More: A Step in the Right Direction for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine Implementation

Extract

Although immunization with two highly efficacious human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines holds great promise for reducing the global burden of HPV-related cancers, the barriers to achieving this goal remain substantial. The cost of HPV vaccination still represents an important obstacle to implementation in many countries but there are several challenges beyond the high cost ( 1 ). It has proven difficult to achieve high levels of coverage with all three HPV vaccine doses even in countries with considerable resources. In the United States, where HPV vaccine delivery is principally by primary care physicians, the uptake of the complete three-dose series of HPV vaccine was recently estimated at 32% among 13- to 17-year-old girls ( 2 ). This low rate of series completion contrasts with the outstanding successes in Australia and the United Kingdom where school-based HPV vaccine programs have achieved much higher rates of coverage for the third HPV vaccine dose (≥72% and ≥84%, respectively) in the primary target population of 12- and 13-year-old girls ( 3 , 4 ). Functional and routine preventive health-care platforms are nearly nonexistent for adolescents worldwide, therefore school-based immunization programs, where feasible, can provide a solution to achieving high vaccine coverage. Beyond providing a venue for adolescent immunization, evidence from England ( 4 ) suggests that school-based HPV vaccine delivery can achieve equity in coverage of 12-year-old girls across deprivation levels of the areas where they live. In the United States, HPV vaccination rates have been strongly and inversely correlated with cervical cancer mortality rates and median income ( 5 ). Because cervical screening coverage is inversely associated with poverty and deprivation ( 6 ), ensuring equitable HPV vaccine delivery and high coverage in populations that are less likely to have opportunities for cervical screening as adults remains a priority.