Commentary: Health inequity could increase in poor countries if universal HPV vaccination is not adopted

doi:10.1136/bmj.39280.457350.BE

BMJ 2007;335:378-379 (25 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.39280.457350.BE

Analysis

Commentary: Health inequity could increase in poor countries if universal HPV vaccination is not adopted

Eduardo L Franco, professor

Departments of Oncology and Epidemiology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada H2W 1S6

eduardo.franco@mcgill.ca

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Resource rich countries such as the United Kingdom, which provideuniversal access to health care, already commit substantialresources to screening programmes for cervical cancer.¹ It ishard to propose changes to the status quo when cervical cancercontrol has been so successful.² Yet, no policymaker can ignorethe pressure from the public, health providers, and drug companiescalling for widescale adoption of vaccination for human papillomavirus(HPV). The danger is that women may "trade 80% protection fromscreening for 17% protection from vaccination."¹ ³ Will theUK allow this to happen? I think not. As Raffle points out,the UK should ensure that primary prevention by HPV vaccinationis integrated with secondary prevention via screening.¹

It is likely that testing for DNA of oncogenic HPV types, whichcan be performed on the same sample as that used for cytology,will provide a way around the low sensitivity of Papanicolaoucytology . . . [Full text of this article]