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posted by martyb on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the still-have-a-long-way-to-go dept.

Naaman Zhou at The Guardian writes that Australia's free human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme in schools has been highly successful. The International Papillomavirus Society calculates that within 40 years, the number of new cases of cervical cancer will become nearly negligible.

HPV (human papillomavirus) is a sexually transmitted infection that causes 99.9% of cervical cancers. In 2007, the federal government began providing the vaccine for free to girls aged 12-13 years, and in 2013, it extended the program to boys.

Girls and boys outside those ages but under 19 can also access two doses of the vaccine for free. In 2016, 78.6% of 15-year old girls and 72.9% of 15-year old boys had been vaccinated.

As a result, the HPV rate among women aged 18 to 24 dropped from 22.7% to 1.1% between 2005 and 2015.

Eradication is still a few decades out but within reach. The vaccinations are backed up by more advanced cervical screening tests, which are themselves highly successful in detecting high-risk HPV infections before they turn really bad.

Source : Australia could become first country to eradicate cervical cancer. The Guardian


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by HiThere on Tuesday March 06 2018, @11:37PM (1 child)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 06 2018, @11:37PM (#648780) Journal

    That's both right and wrong. Many in the gay community were "committed" to indiscriminate sex (among willing partners). They were quite reluctant to accept advice on how to restrict the spread of AIDS. This isn't to say that they held back research, but they weren't willing to change dangerous patterns of behavior for quite awhile. So they (and needle sharing drug users) acted to significantly spread and intensify the AIDS epidemic for long after it became known.

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:06PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:06PM (#649036) Journal

    +1 informative, because I remember some of those attitudes and conversations. And, in retrospect, it seems that the gay attitude probably influenced hetero attitudes toward AIDS and homosexuality. In common street terms, "If the queers insist on trying to infect everyone they meet, then maybe AIDS really is God's punishment."

    I highly doubt that anyone could do serious research on it, but that is food for thought.