Health Leaders Convene in Korea to Save Women's Lives

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) has convened a symposium of 150 experts, policymakers, and decision makers from more than 36 countries from the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. This is to develop solutions to expand vaccination programs to fight Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and its related diseases, including cervical cancer-a major killer of women globally and in both regions.

In the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions, the majority of deaths from HPV occur in women in developing countries who do not have access to preventative health services, most notably, cervical cancer screening programs. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer affecting women in these regions.

In the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions, there are 1.3 billion women ages 15 years or older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that every year, there are more than 265,000 cases of cervical cancer in these regions; of these, over 140,000 women die annually. Deaths from cervical cancer in these regions represent over 50 percent of all cervical cancer deaths globally, of which one third stem from Southern Asia (at 85,192).

There are two available HPV vaccines; the quadrivalent vaccine and the bivalent vaccine. Prophylactic HPV vaccines have a proven high efficacy among HPV-naive women, and are expected to prevent up to 70 percent of cervical cancers among vaccinated women. Most HPV infections have no signs or symptoms and therefore, most infected are unaware.

"With the introduction of two effective vaccines we are now able to fight one of the leading killers of women in these regions," notes Dr. John Clemens, Director General of the IVI. "We still have a lot to accomplish, and this symposium is an important first step in forging necessary public-private partnerships to facilitate the introduction of this vaccine into national immunization programs."