HPV Vaccine

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The Serum Institute of India (SII)’s vaccine Cervavac recently received the Drugs Controller General of India’s (DGCI) approval for market authorisation.

• Cervavac is India’s first quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (qHPV) vaccine, and intended to protect women against cervical cancer.

Cervical cancer

• Cervical cancer is a common sexually transmitted infection.
• Long-lasting infection with certain types of HPV is the main cause of cervical cancer.
• Worldwide, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer type and the second most common cause of cancer death in women of reproductive age (15–44).
• India accounts for about a fifth of the global burden, with 23 lakh cases and around 67,000 deaths per year according to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer
• It kills one woman every eight minutes in the country.
• Screening and vaccination are two powerful tools that are available for preventive cervical cancer.
• Still there is little awareness among women for prevention of this cancer and less than 10% of Indian women get screened.

Existing vaccines

• Two vaccines licensed globally are available in India — a quadrivalent vaccine (Gardasil, from Merck) and a bivalent vaccine (Cervarix, from GlaxoSmithKline).
• Although HPV vaccination was introduced in 2008, it has yet to be included in the national immunisation programme.

The new vaccine

• The vaccine is based on VLP (virus like particles), similar to the hepatitis B vaccine, and provides protection by generating antibodies against the HPV virus’s L1 protein.
• This will be a huge step to accelerate cervical cancer elimination in India and globally.