US study suggests herd immunity for HPV on way

摘要

HUMAN papilloma virus vaccination reduced the prevalence of the vaccine's four HPV types (6, 11, 16 and 18) by 18.3 per cent, an epidemiological study has shown.The US study, published online in Pediatrics (9 July 2012), looked at HPV prevalence before and after introduction of the quadrivalent HPV vaccine and determined whether overall and vaccine-type HPV infection decreased and whether there was any evidence of herd protection.Sexually active girls and women, aged between 13 and 26 years, were recruited between October 2006 and May 2007 for the pre-vaccination surveillance study andbetween December 2009 and June 2010 for the post-vaccination surveillance study.The prevalence of vaccine-type HPV decreased 18.3 per cent among all participants (from 31.7 per cent to 13.4 per cent, P<0.0001).The decrease was greater for vaccinated (21.9 per cent) than for unvaccinated (14.8 per cent) participants.