Building resilient cervical cancer prevention through gender-neutral HPV vaccination.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted HPV vaccination programmes worldwide. Using an agent-based model, EpiMetHeos, recently calibrated to Indian data, we illustrate how shifting from a girls-only (GO) to a gender-neutral (GN) vaccination strategy could improve the resilience of cervical cancer prevention against disruption of HPV vaccination. In the base case of 5-year disruption with no coverage, shifting from GO to GN strategy under 60% coverage (before disruption) would increase the resilience, in terms of cervical cancer cases still prevented in the disrupted birth cohorts per 100,000 girls born, by 2.8-fold from 107 to 302 cases, and by 2.2-fold from 209 to 464 cases under 90% coverage. Furthermore, shifting to GN vaccination helped in reaching the World Health Organization (WHO) elimi

SUBMITTER: Man I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10365835 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature