New HPV vaccine is effective against 9 strains of the virus

[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]In a world obsessed with curing cancer, prevention is less headline-grabbing, but it's also generally less painful and cheaper. Vaccines for the human papillomavirus (HPV) are a formidable weapon in the arsenal against multiple kinds of cancer, yet the uptake of the vaccine in the US is low, especially when compared to other high-income countries.

According to the President’s Cancer Panel Annual Report 2012-2013, only 33.4 percent of girls in the US complete the course of three HPV vaccines, compared to 60.4 percent in the UK and 71.2 percent in Australia. The vaccination rate for boys is even lower, at less than seven percent—unsurprising given that many public health campaigns specifically target girls.

This is a problem given how common HPV is, and how dangerous it can be. At any given time, one in four Americans is infected with at least one strain of the virus. Almost all sexually active people will be infected with it at some point in their lives. Most infections will be cleared by the immune system, but the remaining cases may lead to cervical, anal, or oral cancer, with approximately 26,000 cases in the US every year.

(more at link)

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/02/new-hpv-vaccine-is-effective-against-9-strains-of-the-virus/

I still can't believe the vaccination rate is so damn low, that's simply unacceptable.