The COVID-19 pandemic has interrupted delivery of key health services for children and adolescents, including HPV vaccination for cancer prevention. (Photography: Steve Wood) The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has partnered with other National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers to issue a joint statement urging the nation’s physicians, parents and young adults to get the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination back on track.
Dramatic drops in annual well visits and immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic have caused a significant vaccination gap and lag in vital preventive services among U.S. children and adolescents — especially for the HPV vaccine.
“The pandemic has created a significant vaccination gap in the United States, especially for adolescents,” said Barry Sleckman, M.D., Ph.D., director of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Well-child visits are down. Usual ‘back to school’ vaccination activity for adolescents has been limited by virtual and hybrid learning. It is crucial that we get back on track as a nation with adolescent vaccination to ensure we protect our children and communities.”
Nearly 80 million Americans – one out of every four people – are infected with HPV, a virus that causes several types of cancers. Of those millions, more than 31,000 will be diagnosed with an HPV-related cancer this year. Despite those staggering figures and the availability of a vaccine to prevent HPV infections, HPV vaccination rates remain significantly lower than other recommended adolescent vaccines in the United States. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, HPV vaccination rates lagged far behind other vaccines and other countries’ HPV vaccination rates. According to 2017 data from the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, fewer than half (49 percent) of adolescents were up to date on the HPV vaccine.
Those numbers have declined dangerously since the pandemic:
- Early in the pandemic, HPV vaccination rates among adolescents fell by 75 percent, resulting in a large cohort of unvaccinated children.
- Since March 2020, an estimated 1 million doses of HPV vaccine have been missed by adolescents with public insurance — a decline of 21 percent over pre-pandemic levels.
The United States has recommended routine HPV vaccination for females since 2006, and for males since 2011. Current recommendations are for routine vaccination at ages 11 or 12 or starting at age 9. Catch-up HPV vaccination is recommended through age 26.
Barry Sleckman, M.D., Ph.D., (Photography: Andrea Mabry), and Isabel Scarinci, Ph.D. (Photography: Steve Wood)NCI Cancer Centers strongly encourage parents to vaccinate their adolescents as soon as possible. The CDC recently authorized COVID-19 vaccination for 12- to 15-year-old children, allowing for missed doses of routinely recommended vaccines, including HPV, to be administered at the same time. NCI Cancer Centers strongly urge action by health care systems and health care providers to identify and contact adolescents due for vaccinations and to use every opportunity to encourage and complete vaccination.
“HPV vaccination is cancer prevention. Now is the time to catch up on missed doses of HPV vaccine to prevent future cancers,” said Isabel Scarinci, Ph.D., senior adviser for globalization and cancer in the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center and professor in UAB’s Division of Preventive Medicine. Scarinci has worked for decades to end cervical cancer as a public health problem. “Vaccinating our adolescents against COVID-19 is the perfect opportunity to ensure children are also protected from HPV.”
More information on HPV is available from the CDC and National HPV Vaccination Roundtable. This is the third time that all NCI-designated cancer centers have come together to issue a national call to action. All 71 cancer centers unanimously share the goal of sending a powerful message to parents, adolescents and health care providers about the importance of HPV vaccination for the elimination of HPV-related cancers.