CDC: Vaccine Responsible for Decreased Rates of HPV

The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine significantly decreases the rate of infection among women aged 14 to 24 years, according to new research.

Since the HPV vaccine was introduced in 2006, girls aged 11 years and older have been recommended to receive the 3-dose vaccine. However, few studies have compared the HPV infection rates before and after the vaccine was introduced.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
FDA Approves New HPV Vaccine
Are 3 Doses Necessary for the HPV Vaccine?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To understand the impact of the vaccine, researchers examined cervicovaginal specimens from girls aged 14 to 34 years who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2003 to 2012.

Researchers compared the occurrence of different types of HPV targeted by the vaccine in the prevaccine era (2003-2006) and the postvaccine era (2009-2012).

After analyzing the data, researchers found that the prevalence of HPV decreased from 11.5% to 4.3% among girls aged 14 to 19 years and from 18.5% to 12.1% among girls aged 20 to 24 years. No decrease was seen among girls in other age groups.

In addition, sexually active girls aged 14 to 24 years who were vaccinated were less likely to have HPV than sexually active girls who weren’t vaccinated (2.1% versus 16.9%, respectively).

“Within 6 years of vaccine introduction, there was a 64% decrease in 4vHPV type prevalence among females aged 14 to 19 years and a 34% decrease among those aged 20 to 24 years,” researchers concluded. “This finding extends previous observations of population impact in the United States and demonstrates the first national evidence of impact among females in their 20s.”

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Markowitz LE, Liu G, Hariri S, Steinau M, Dunne EF, Unger ER. Prevalence of HPV after introduction of the vaccination program in the United States. Pediatrics. 2016;137(3). http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/137/3/1.16.