<
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/05/31/cheap-single-dose-hpv-vaccines-could-save-millions-of-lives>
"Alongside ailments resulting from hepatitis B, cervical cancer has a strong
claim to be the world’s deadliest vaccine-preventable disease. Most illnesses
for which effective vaccines for children are widely available no longer
threaten public health. But in 2020, 14 years after the advent of a jab that
prevents almost all cases, cervical cancer still killed 342,000 women. If
take-up of the vaccine rose—a goal about which there are new grounds for
hope—this cancer could be nearly eliminated.
Fully 95% of cervical-cancer cases are caused by human papillomavirus (hpv), a
group of sexually transmitted viruses. So common is hpv that nearly every
sexually active person contracts a strain. Most never know, because the body
flushes it out within two years. In some cases, however, the virus lingers,
forming lesions on women’s cervixes that can become cancerous.
This deadly condition is the second most common cancer among women aged 15-44.
In rich countries, five-year survival rates are around 70%. In the poorest
ones, which account for 90% of deaths from cervical cancer, less than one in
five women with the disease are thought to survive.
The hpv jab, if given before people become sexually active, fully protects
against hpv. But take-up has been slow. In the rich world, the share of people
vaccinated by age 15 ranges from zero in Japan, which only resumed recommending
the jab in 2022, to 81% in Britain. Many poorer countries have never begun
vaccination drives. Worldwide, just 12% of eligible girls got the jab in 2021,
down from 14% in 2019."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews-stunting-ocean-australia-wind-solar-europe/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
