Gender-neutrality, herd effect and resilient immune response for sustainable impact of HPV vaccination

Purpose of review This review summarize the impact of various strategies of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, such as vaccinating only girls or both girls and boys. Recent findings Slow and inefficient implementation of HPV vaccination programmes has delayed the impact of the first human cancer vaccine. Vaccinating only girls, with a rather low coverage, has led to a limited herd effect and, thus, not full use of the HPV vaccine potential. Summary Gender-neutral vaccination based on comparative effectiveness research will hopefully soon tackle the whole spectrum of HPV cancers in both sexes. The remaining challenges are how to ensure resilience of HPV vaccine-induced immunity and herd effect to guarantee population-level impact of HPV vaccination, and how to guard against HPV type replacement.