For the first time since the HPV vaccine was introduced, England has passed a full five-year period in which not a single woman aged 20 to 24 died of cervical cancer. The finding comes from an analysis of national mortality data published in The Lancet, the first study to show directly that the vaccine not only prevents disease but measurably saves lives.
Researchers led by Peter Sasieni of Queen Mary University of London, with his colleague Milena Falcaro, examined every cervical cancer death among women aged 20 to 34 recorded in England between 2001 and 2024. Using a statistical model, they compared the deaths that actually occurred with those that would have been expected without a vaccination programme.
The effect was starkest in the youngest group. The 20- to 24-year-olds of 2020 to 2024 had been vaccinated at age 12 or 13, around nine in ten took up the offer — and none of them died. Without the vaccine, the team calculated, about 23 deaths would have been expected. Across the whole programme, the authors estimate that some 200 deaths have already been prevented, with many more likely as the vaccinated cohorts grow older.
Why it matters
Almost all cervical cancers are caused by human papillomavirus, one of the most common sexually transmitted infections: without vaccination, about 80 percent of people are infected at some point in their lives. England has routinely vaccinated girls aged 12 and 13 since 2008. "It's incredible to think that a single jab can almost eliminate a particular type of cancer," Sasieni told the BBC.
The success depends on high vaccination rates, however — and those are slipping. Recently only about three-quarters of girls were vaccinated by age 15, well below the 90 percent mark the WHO says is needed to eliminate cervical cancer. The study is thus both proof of the vaccine's value and a call not to squander what has been achieved.