I got my ten-year-old daughter vaccinated against HPV yesterday. The vaccine is now also part of the Universal Immunization Programme of the Government of India.
SII’s CERVAVAC is a four-strain vaccine while Merck’s GARDASIL-9 is a nine strain one with a price difference of almost 6x. GARDASIL is recommended by Merck as a three-shot vaccine though the CDC recommends two doses for children between 9 and 14 and three doses for children above 15 years. My pediatrician has put the onus on me to decide if I want to go for three-doses. The UK NHS gives just a single dose of the vaccine.
At the end of the day, most of the national vaccination schedules optimize for costs and public health benefits.
If you’re reading this and know women below the age of 26 who are unvaccinated, do convince them to take the shot. Cervical cancer is the second most prevalent cancer in India and highly responsive to the vaccine.
There’s something oddly satisfying to think about how vaccines have managed to banish out diseases over the past decades. The mRNA revolution will probably usher in a new era of vaccines. I’m betting that malaria and dengue will probably be eradicated in my lifetime.
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