Highlights

After the introduction of the nine-valent form of Gardasil, are there still unmet clinical needs for HPV vaccines?

I think this is an excellent vaccine, and if we use it widely it could do the job. Now, there are also some studies trying to understand if one single dose might provide significant protection for a long time, even lifetime, I think if a single dose might be shown to provide good mid-term or long-term protection, and you don’t need any other vaccine – if the coverage becomes high in the population, not only in girls but also in the population of adolescents worldwide, we’d probably be able to halt the transmission of HPV. So, it’s an excellent vaccine, and might do the job of eliminating the transmission of the virus, if it’s able to provide protection with only one dose.

Can I just ask who advised to stop vaccinations in boys, and in which countries?

This is a recent request from the strategic advisory group of experts of the WHO, I think it was around 20 days ago, one month ago, and since there is a shortage of the vaccine they issued a statement, which came out I think yesterday or the day before yesterday, asking the countries that had already started the vaccination in boys to stop it, to interrupt it, because they would like to save the doses for the girls in all countries, including developing countries. So, they said since the vaccine is meant to prevent cervical cancer, which is the most important, and most deadly of HPV-related diseases, we’re asking you not to use the vaccine in boys, not as much as in the population of girls, because we want to save the doses to give them to the maximum amount of girls possible. But in Italy, this hasn’t been discussed, and I think it’s a very difficult topic for the vaccination.