HPV and the Worldwide Goal to Eliminate It

HPV is a viral infection that is transferred during sexual activity and can cause up to 100 different varieties, some of which cause genital warts. The spreading of genital warts can come from just physical contact. Other types of HPV can lead to different types of cancers including cervical cancer and anus or penis cancers. This is quite concerning that just one viral infection can cause such severe diseases that could greatly alter your life. The article from before says that nearly all cervical cancers are caused by HPV but that it could take up to twenty years for it to develop after getting the infection. This is very concerning because you could have HPV for a long time and either not know you have it or believe it is not the type that causes cervical cancer and then develop it a lot later in life.

Knowing that HPV causes such severe diseases as cervical cancer and that there was a vaccine it made me curious how the world is trying to work at getting it eliminated. Currently the vaccine is being administered a lot less often in underdeveloped countries, which means that cervical cancer is more prominent in these regions. The article says that certain countries, such as Australia, are predicted to have only 4 in 100,000 women with cervical cancer by 2035 because of the HPV vaccine and screenings they have put into place. This would be a huge reduction in the amount of women with cervical cancer and could mean that HPV and cervical cancer are eliminated from the population in the near future. The eradication of both HPV and cervical cancer from the world would be amazing and could save millions of lives.

I was then curious about if there is a link between cervical cancer and HPV if there was any other cancers that were unrelated to the cervix, penis, or anus that could be linked to HPV as well. When I looked into it I found that some head and neck cancers have been found to be caused by certain strains of HPV and the risk of developing head and neck cancers from HPV are increased with smoking and immunosuppression. This means that HPV is not only a health risk in the genital region but also for developing oral cancers that are also very life threatening. The article also stated that there had been a link between non-sexual transmission of HPV orally such as deep kissing. I was very shocked by this because I had always thought that HPV could only be transmitted sexually. This means that even more men and women could be at risk for getting HPV orally and then possibly developing cancer later in their life. This means that vaccines and screenings for HPV are even more important for the protection of both men and women against developing cancer later on in their life.