What do AIDS and cervical cancer have in common? Both are caused by viruses, transmitted sexually and disproportionately affect poor women and women of color. But AIDS still cannot be prevented by a vaccine while cervical cancer can.
So perhaps it is only natural to hear a global call to stop cervical cancer being issued in Nairobi, Kenya today at what is billed as the first international conference on women and AIDS. You can join the call, which has been initiated by 13 organizations, including the World YWCA and the Rockefeller Foundation, until October 12.
The product behind the call is a vaccine against human papilloma virus (HPV), the major cause of cervical cancer. Still unclear to me is how much the vaccine formulation that's being marketed in the richer parts of the world will have to be retooled for other countries.
After all, there are a number of different subtypes of HPV that cause cancer--HPV-16 and HPV-18 being the most common culprits in the U.S. But other subtypes, like HPV-35, may be more troublesome in other parts of the world, as I wrote last May in A Geographical Puzzle on HPV.
Can there be a truly global vaccine against cervical cancer? What sort of testing, reformulation will be required? Will the incentive to do so disappear if the same vaccine that has already been developed for women in the richest part of the world can't be used everywhere?
Update: See also the Center for Global Development's concerns that the advocacy cart is getting ahead of the cost-analysis horse on HPV vaccines.
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