16 times economic gain from HPV shots, says WHO report

New Delhi: India stands to make 16-times economic gain by introducing the HPV vaccine to adolescent girls despite the investment being over a billion dollars, World Health Organisation says in a new report that highlights adolescent health intervention strategies to the government.

The report, released by top officials of the Union Health and Education Ministries, says, this vaccine will only be for girls aged nine. There will be a catch-up for girls aged 10-14, and twice in a lifetime they will have cervical cancer screening at age 35 and 45.

The Human Papillomavirus vaccination is a part of the WHO strategy to reduce the global burden of cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women.

More than five years ago, the National Technical Advisory Group for Immunisation recommended introducing HPV in the universal immunisation programme, but the scheme is yet to take off presumably due to lack of funding.

While presenting the interim budget earlier this year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government would encourage vaccination for girls in the age group of 9-14 years for the prevention of cervical cancer.

But there was no mention of any HPV vaccination programme in the regular budget that she presented to the Lok Sabha earlier this week.

Also no special allocation has been made for such a scheme in the Union Health Ministry’s budget even though the allocation for the National Health Mission has been enhanced by Rs 4,000 crore.

According to the cost-benefit modelling in the WHO story, the government will have to spend nearly $ 1.1 billion, but the economic benefits will be 16.7 times.

Last week another WHO report flagged India and China among 52 nations where HPV shots were not introduced despite many women suffering from cervical cancer

About 5 per cent of Indian women in the general population are estimated to harbour cervical HPV-16/18 infection at a given time and over 83 per cent of invasive cervical cancers are attributed to HPVs 16 or 18, says the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

For a long time, there were only two HPV vaccines available in India, manufactured by two global pharmaceutical majors. Since both were expensive, the vaccine uptake was low as it was only used in private practice. A third made-in-India shot is now available.

In 2022, the Union Health Ministry took preparatory steps to launch the vaccine in a graded manner to cover all the states in three phases.

It wrote to the states to increase awareness about the vaccine and create the administrative structures required to carry out the vaccination. The final decision to start the vaccination, however, was not taken.