Neuzil KM. JAMA. 2011;305:1424-1431.
The quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine was immunogenic and well tolerated on alternative dosing schedules and comparable with the safety profiles of standard vaccine schedules among adolescent girls in Vietnam, according to new findings presented during a Journal of the American Medical Association media briefing.
“Most low-resource countries do not have adolescent vaccination programs,” Kathleen M. Neuzil, MD, MPH, senior clinical adviser for vaccines and the director of the influenza vaccine project of PATH, Seattle, said during the briefing. “Even if we could design a program, delivering these vaccines on the currently recommended schedules would be challenging. Schedule variations will occur, and do occur, so we need to understand how well these vaccines work in those situations.”
For this reason, Neuzil and colleagues set out to examine more practical and less costly vaccination schedules for the HPV vaccine (Gardasil, Merck) and to determine the immunogenicity and reactogenicity of three alternative dosing schedules of the vaccine. “Our primary hypothesis required that both HPV-16 and HPV-18 serotypes meet noninferiority criteria,” Neuzil said.
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Disclosure: This study was funded with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Merck provided the vaccine and the immunogenicity testing at no charge.
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