Overview
- The model indicates female-only vaccination would require about 99% coverage to eliminate HPV, versus roughly 80% coverage today among girls aged 12–17.
- Simulations estimate that adding about 65% coverage in boys would, with current female rates, eliminate HPV-related cancers in South Korea within 60–70 years.
- Researchers calibrated the transmission model using South Korean demographic and cervical cancer data from 1999 to 2020 and published the study in Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.
- The authors recommend routine vaccination for boys aged 12–17 plus catch-up doses for women who missed earlier immunization.
- The study flags a substantial rise in male HPV-related cancers in South Korea over two decades and underscores HPV’s large global death toll.