South China Province Plans $94 Million HPV Vaccination Pilot Program

Guangdong province is set to offer free HPV vaccines to eligible female residents under 14 years of age starting next September. The announcement makes the southern province the first in the nation to pilot such a mass vaccination program, to fight the virus that causes cervical cancer.

Guangdong’s Department of Finance plans to invest around 600 million yuan ($94 million) in free vaccinations from 2022 to 2024, according to a Wednesday report (link in Chinese) published on its website.

The shots will be given to girls who are registered as Guangdong students and will become 7th graders in local middle schools in September 2022, the report said. Recipients of vaccine must also meet the age requirements and cannot have previously received vaccines against the human papillomavirus (HPV).

The vaccination campaign aims to reduce the incidence rate of cervical cancer in women in the southern province. It is also part of the government’s efforts to align with the World Health Organization’s goal to fully vaccinate 90% of girls aged below 15 around the world with an HPV vaccine by 2030, the report said.

HPV is a common sexually transmitted type of virus that can cause cancers of the cervix, genitals, anus and throat. In 2020, cervical cancer killed 60,000 women in China, according to a government report (link in Chinese) published in July. Globally, the disease has killed more than 300,000 women in 2018, according to the WHO.

The incidence rate of cervical cancer in Guangdong has reached 13.5 per 100,000 women, Li Xiaomao, a professor of gynecology at Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, said at a July seminar on cervical cancer prevention held in the provincial capital of Guangzhou, according to local media. This figure is higher than the rest of the country, which registered an incidence of 12.96 per 100,000 women, according to an October government report.

Although HPV vaccination is considered an effective way to reduce the disease’s incidence, not many in China have received a vaccine. Caixin learned that the vaccination rate for Chinese women aged 9 to 14 — a group the WHO recommends getting vaccinated — is less than 1%.

In comparison, most vaccinated Chinese women were adults. One reason that more adult women were vaccinated could be because they can afford it. HPV vaccines haven’t been covered by the national medical insurance program, which hinders many young vaccine seekers from getting inoculated, not to mention pricier dosages.

Currently, four types of HPV vaccines are available in the Chinese market, with the price of each dose ranging from 300 yuan to 1,350 yuan, Caixin has learned. Developed by Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co. Ltd., a dose of a two-valent vaccine, which guards against two strains of HPV, costs about 350 yuan. In general, the higher the “valent” of HPV vaccine, the broader the range of viruses that can be prevented and the wider the protection for recipients.

In recent years, many local governments have been making efforts to promote HPV vaccinations, including offering free vaccines to certain groups of women. Jungar Banner, a county-level jurisdiction in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, last year became the first place on the Chinese mainland to administer free HPV vaccines.

Contact reporter Wang Xintong (xintongwang@caixin.com) and editor Bertrand Teo (bertrandteo@caixin.com)

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