The Urgent Need for a Human Papillomavirus HPV Vaccine

The human papillomavirus or HPV infection is probably the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease in the United States nowadays. This has become so common that every sexually active individual stands the highest chances of catching the virus and infecting others with it as well.

Genital HPV has different strains and an individual can contract at least one of these during a sexual contact with a person already carrying it. The HPV is not a very dangerous virus that can cause serious physical harm or death.

However, its symptoms are really very annoying and, especially if it is not tended, painful. Worse, an outbreak can generally weaken the body’s own defenses, making it vulnerable to other more serious diseases.

Women are most likely to be infected with genital HPV according to researches made across the globe. Although many of them do not get more serious diseases, the number of deaths caused by cervical cancer due to negligence in treating genital HPV is quite alarming. The number of new cervical cancer patients every year has risen to almost half a million.

Nearly a quarter of a million also die from it. Unless treated, HPV can cause cervical dysplasia, a condition that is very much feared by women. This is because cervical dysplasia is the antecedent to cervical cancer. Once a woman has cervical dysplasia, the chance of developing cancer in her cervix becomes higher.

Fortunately, human papillomavirus HPV vaccines have been developed and manufactured. Many of the strains of genital HPV are not factors for cancer. However, the vaccines that can now be availed with a doctor’s prescription specifically combat the strains that have been identified as cancer causing.

The two types of vaccines available are Gardasil and Cervarix. These vaccines prevent the infection of a woman with HPV strains 16 and 18. However, these can only be effective for women who have not yet been infected with the said HPV strains. Once a woman is infected with any of the two strains, neither Gardasil nor Cervarix may still work. In their case, the best prevention would be to have cervical screening or Pap smear testing regularly. This may even be done by those who have already been vaccinated.

It is not only women that face the risk of HPV infection. Men also do but they do not come to the point of suffering more serious ailments like women. Nevertheless, they too can be injected with any of the two vaccines.

Gardasil and Cervarix are applied in three shots for a period of six months. Some countries do not allow their men to be vaccinated though. Most of the developed and industrial countries, however, have allowed vaccination for men. Just like women, vaccination only works on men that have not been infected with HPV before.