85% reduction of carcinogenic strains! Is the era of mass immunization against HPV coming?

Maybe you don't know about cervical cancer, but you must have heard of the hot HPV vaccine in recent years.

The relationship between the two is also self-evident. Cervical cancer is one of the common malignant tumors of women in the world, and HPV vaccine is like a small soldier who can defend the human defense line, keeping an eye on the invasion trend of HPV and not giving HPV a chance to take advantage of it.

HPV has many evils, and always likes to take the opportunity to steal towers. Fortunately, modern medicine is not vegetarian.

Scientists racked their brains to develop a HPV vaccine. The United States also launched a HPV vaccination program after that.

At present, a new analysis shows that 12 years after the implementation of the vaccination plan, cervical cancer began to show strong signs of mass immunization [1].

After 12 years of vaccination, there is strong evidence of mass immunization

On May 16, Annals of Internal Medicine issued a powerful message about HPV - 12 years after the introduction of HPV vaccination plan in the United States:

The overall prevalence of cancer causing HPV strains covered by the vaccine decreased by 85% among women;

The number of women vaccinated decreased by 90%;

There was a 74 per cent drop in unvaccinated women.

A new analysis of a representative database shows that this is a strong sign of mass immunization!

The experience of 12 years of HPV vaccination abroad tells us that the effect of HPV vaccination is really good.

The data shows that the impact of HPV vaccine on women is growing. Even the group effect of women who have not been vaccinated is stronger and stronger, and the level of immunity to HPV is gradually improving.

Although up to now, the coverage of vaccination is not high, there is no denying that vaccination against HPV is an effective means to prevent HPV infection.

What does mass immunization mean?

Many people will inevitably ask: What is mass immunization? What does mass immunization mean? Don't worry, I'll answer for you one by one.

First, group immunity means that when a sufficient number of people in the population have immunity to a certain pathogen, it can reduce the possibility of effective contact between the sick and susceptible people, so as to obtain group immunity [2].

To put it simply, when some people are immune to a certain virus, the virus will lose its way of infection. No matter how much it tries to do, it will not help, and it will be destroyed in the immune person at once.

As for those who have no immunity to the virus, the crisis of infection will also be eliminated, and the sense of security will burst instantly.

In this case, the living space of the virus shrinks sharply. When the initially infected person recovers or dies, the virus also dies.

See here, do you think the group immunity is very strong! Then how to achieve mass immunity is another problem.

In order to achieve group immunity, first of all, individual immunity must be achieved. What is individual immunity?

In fact, this is a kind of human physiological function. The immune system in the body is like a big family. They are familiar with each other and support each other. When there are strange substances in the body that do not belong to this big family, such as viruses and germs, the immune system will open the screening mode - use the immune response to eliminate these viruses and germs to maintain the health of the body.

For a virus, there are two main ways to obtain long-term immunity:

1. Artificial active acquisition: inject vaccine to stimulate the human body to actively generate specific immunity;

2. Natural passive acquisition: When the human body is cured after being infected with a virus, it produces antibodies and specific cells to the virus, thus obtaining immunity.

Therefore, if you want to establish group immunity, you usually get it through vaccination (such as smallpox vaccine) or people have been generally exposed to and infected with this virus (such as influenza).

What happened to the first batch of people taking HPV vaccine?

The UK also has a real world study on the immune effect after HPV vaccination, which has been followed for 13 years. [3]

The results showed that the effective rate of vaccination against cervical cancer and severe cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN3) was 34% and 39%, respectively, at the age of 16-18 years; If the vaccine was inoculated at the age of 12 to 13, the prevention efficiency was 87% and 97% respectively.

That is to say, after the start of the HPV vaccination program in the UK, the incidence rate of cervical cancer and precancerous lesions in young women also declined significantly.

Especially women who have been vaccinated at the age of 12 to 13. This almost eliminated cervical cancer in women born after September 1, 1995 in the UK.

This may be related to the main route of transmission of HPV is sexual behavior. Studies have shown that it is more effective to start HPV vaccination before the age of sexual activity. Therefore, the recommended initial vaccination age in many countries is 12 to 13 years.

Why should we vaccinate against HPV?

HPV is a DNA virus. At present, more than 200 subtypes have been found, but there are only a few "risk molecules" that can cause cancer, which we call high-risk type. Other "non carcinogenic" grades are called low-risk.

High risk HPV: can cause cervical cancer, vaginal cancer and perineal cancer in women;

Low risk HPV: It does not cause cancer, but may cause condyloma acuminatum, which is commonly known as "cauliflower".

Generally, 80%~90% of women who have had sex may be infected with HPV throughout their lives, and most of them can be cleared automatically. A few high-risk HPV persistent infections may cause precancerous lesions, and if the lesions are not treated, they may progress to cervical cancer.

The study found that 99.7% of cervical cancer was related to high-risk HPV infection. [4]

Among high-risk HPV types, type 16 and type 18 are the "most wanted". They cause nearly 70% of cervical cancer, 90% of anal cancer and a large proportion of vaginal, vulval and oropharyngeal cancer. [5]

Therefore, inoculation of HPV vaccine is one of the effective prevention methods. The vaccine is reserved on the clove doctor platform, and it is refunded at any time without charge (the return time is within 1-3 working days).

Reference

[1] Annals of internal Medicine

[2] SMITH D R. Herd Immunity [J]. The Veterinary clinics of North America Food animal practice, 2019, 35(3): 593-604.

[3] The Lancet Published:October 29,2021.

[4] Epidemiology, risk factors, clinical manifestations and diagnostic terms of invasive cervical cancer in the Update database

[5] National cancer institute.