Much remains to be done to achieve the desired 80% vaccination coverage by 2030. However, vaccination of adolescents against papillomavirus has seen a notable increase in France since the start of the campaign in collegeincluding in community medicine, according to data published Friday by Public health France. “Taking into account vaccinations in middle school as well as in private practices”, vaccination coverage increased by 17 points among girls and by 15 points among 12-year-old boys, between the start and the end of the first phase targeting 5th grade students.
Overall, in town and college, the proportion of girls born in 2011 having received at least one dose of anti-HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine is “estimated at 55%” at the end of 2023, said SpF. For boys, it’s 41%. “These increases are part of an upward trend in HPV vaccination coverage,” noted the health agency. In the last quarter of 2022, over a period equivalent to that of the campaign, increases in anti-HPV coverage were 4 points among girls and boys of the same age.
“More complete analyses, based in particular on a study conducted among parents in colleges, will make it possible to estimate the real gain in vaccination coverage against HPV obtained thanks to the campaign,” Public Health France also specified. It is not “excluded that certain adolescent girls whose HPV vaccination would have been scheduled in the city in the coming months may have taken the opportunity to be vaccinated at school.”
A campaign launched in October 2023
The objective set by the Ministry of Health at the beginning of September 2023 was at least 30% of 5th grade students vaccinated at college for this first edition. And provisional official figures, obtained at the beginning of February, showed that only 10% of 5th grade students had received a first anti-HPV dose.
Promised at the start of 2023 by Emmanuel Macron, this vaccination campaign against human papillomavirus, the cause of many cancers (cervix, vulva, vagina, ENT, anus, etc.), was launched at the beginning of October in all public colleges and voluntary private establishments. Public Health France also noted an increase in vaccination coverage among older adolescents “greater than in previous years”.
Overall, “although notable increases in vaccination coverage for vaccination against papillomavirus (HPV) infections are observed, this vaccination coverage still needs to be improved in young girls and especially in young boys,” according to the agency. .
