Facts about HPV and HPV Vaccines

People may have told you to get the HPV vaccine for you or your children, and they may also have said that 9 valent is better. However, do you really know what HPV is, how safe the HPV vaccine is and how to choose from different types of vaccines? This article will answer several key questions about HPV and HPV vaccines.

1. What is HPV?

HPV is Human Papillomavirus, a very common sexually transmitted pathogen. The HPV family is huge, and more than 100 types are now known. According to the carcinogenicity of HPV, the family is divided into low-risk type and high-risk type clinically.

Some low-risk types of HPV can cause genital warts. Some high-risk types of HPV are related to the occurrence of cancer. Among them, high-risk types of HPV include type 16, 18, 31, 33, which cause 95% of cervical cancers worldwide.

2. Will women infected with HPV get cervical cancer?

lead to cancer.

In fact, most people have been infected with HPV. 80% of adults in the United States are infected with HPV once in their lifetime. However, even if nothing is done, 90% to 95% of HPV viruses will be automatically cleared by the human immune system within 1 to 2 years. Therefore, it is not that terrible even if HPV is detected as positive.

3. Why do you still have to get HPV vaccine?

In a word, for safety. After all, for women, the relationship between HPV and cervical cancer is still very close. Without repeated infections of high-risk HPV, the risk of cervical cancer is greatly reduced.

HPV spreads via sexual transmission, so delaying the age of first sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and even abstinence are the main ways to avoid or reduce HPV infection in the reproductive tract. In addition to the above, injection of HPV vaccine is also an effective way.

4. What are the HPV vaccines?

The existing HPV vaccines are mainly used to prevent high-risk HPV cervical cancer. In other words, this vaccine is specifically for HPV that causes cervical cancer. There are currently three kinds, 2-valent, 4-valent and 9-valent. The word "valent" here refers to the number of types of virus subtypes.

Since type 16 and 18 are the most dangerous types of cervical cancer, the most basic 2-valent vaccine is for types 16 and 18, while the 4-valent and 9-valent vaccines add other types of prevention on this basis.

2-valent is for two types of HPV (16, 18)

4-valent is for four types (6, 11, 16, 18)

9-valent is for the nine types (6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, 58)

5. When is the best time to inject HPV vaccine?

The vaccine performs best before the first sex, because having sex means someone may be infected with HPV, and the effect of the vaccine is much worse.

The recommended age for vaccination is 9-12 years old. There are guidelines that recommend 3 doses of HPV vaccine for women between 27 and 45 years old, which might also have a certain preventive effect.

6. Can HPV be treated with HPV vaccine?

The answer is no. There are no drugs specifically for HPV at this stage. HPV vaccines are only used to prevent infection.

7. Are there any side effects or safety risks from HPV vaccine injection?

Security has been tested. According to the CDC data as of June 2015, more than 60 million cervical cancer vaccines have been used, and no serious adverse reactions caused by the vaccine itself have occurred. It needs to be noted that the chance of injection reactions such as local redness and swelling after the 9-valent vaccine is more obvious than the other two.

8. Can men get HPV vaccine?

Yes, but the price/performance ratio is not high. Although men do not get cervical cancer, some subtypes of HPV are also related to penile cancer or genital warts. Men can be vaccinated. However, due to the low incidence of male-related malignant diseases, some experts think that it is not necessary for men.

The role of HPV in cancer development has been extensively studied, primarily in cervical cancer, but also in other types of neoplasms. Nowadays, Creative Biolabs offers anti-HPV antibodies for multiple research use (can not be used for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes in animals or humans), in both conjugated and unconjugated forms.

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