U.K. Recommends Reducing HPV Vaccination Doses Again

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), an expert scientific advisory committee, recently advised the U.K. government to reduce the number of HPV vaccine doses administered from two to one.

This JCVI advice is interim, pending a stakeholder consultation.

The 2-dose schedule of Merck's Gardasil® was implemented in the national program for the routine vaccination cohort of females aged 11 to 13 years old beginning September 2014.

Announced on February 10, 2022, the JCVI's recommendation was initially considered as far back as 2018.

The JCVI met in December 2021 to consider the latest evidence on the protective efficacy and immunogenicity of one dose of the HPV vaccine, including that from ongoing clinical trials of a single-dose schedule using the 9-valent vaccine.

The move to the 9-valent vaccine is due to commence in 2022.

The Gardasil 9-valent HPV vaccine is JCVI's preferred vaccine for the program because of its protection against five additional cancer-causing HPV types.

In the U.S., the CDC published the updated HPV vaccination scheduled for adolescents and adults on February 17, 2022.

The CDC recommends two doses of the Gardasil-9 HPV vaccine for all adolescents at age 11 or 12 years and three doses for other people.