37% of U.S. Teen Girls Got HPV Vaccine
More than one in three U.S. teen girls has had at
least one shot of Gardasil, a CDC
survey shows, but only 18% of girls got the three shots needed for protection.
The survey includes girls vaccinated through 2008, two
years after Gardasil's approval. A second HPV
vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix, is expected to be approved this year.
Gardasil, from Merck, protects against the four
strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause most
cases of cervical cancer and genital
warts. But other HPV strains also
cause these diseases, so even vaccinated women still need regular Pap exams.
Gardasil's acceptance varied widely by state. More
than half of all teen girls aged 13 to 17 had at least one shot of the HPV
vaccine in six states: Arizona, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode
Island, and Vermont.
Fewer than one in five girls got the vaccine in three
states: Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
Coverage was highest in Rhode Island (54.7%) and New
Hampshire (54.4%) and lowest in Mississippi (15.8%) and Georgia (18.5%).
Cervical cancer
is more common in women of Hispanic descent and in people living below the
poverty level. Perhaps because the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program provides
the expensive vaccine to uninsured children, girls in these groups had higher
rates of coverage than other girls.
Source: children.webmd.com