4 min readPuneMay 5, 2026 05:02 PM IST
High-income countries could eliminate cervical cancer by 2048, but without expanded efforts in vaccination and screening, many women in other regions will still face high risks of cervical cancer according to a new modelling study in The Lancet. The study highlights that reaching the World Health Organization’s (WHO) goals—vaccinating 90% of girls, screening 70% of women, and treating 90% of pre-cancer and cancer cases—is crucial to eliminating cervical cancer globally and saving millions of lives.
Achieving these goals could avert 37 million cervical cancer cases over the next century and accelerate progress toward elimination. “For India, reaching these targets would avert over 10 million cervical cancer cases over the next century, accelerate progress toward elimination, and would reduce inequalities with high income countries,” said Prof Marc Brisson, Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Modelling and Health Economics Related to Infectious Diseases and lead author of the study.
Importantly, working towards these targets, India rolled out its HPV vaccination campaign earlier this year. Over 1.5 lakh primary health centres across the country screen for three most common forms of cancers in the country, including cervical cancer. And, the country is working towards setting up more cancer centres and creating a grid to ensure people are able to access care.
The lancet model findings
Using current national cervical cancer vaccination and screening efforts, researchers estimated that high-income countries are on track to eliminate cervical cancer by 2048, while low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will see only slight reductions over the next century. As a result, the gap between regions will widen dramatically, with women in the poorer countries facing much higher rates of this preventable disease.
For India, according to Prof Brisson, a low HPV vaccination coverage would mean that the incidence rate would increase from 2 times more than high income countries to 12 times more by the end of the century. “However, if India reaches 90% vaccination coverage of girls, elimination would be possible by 2085, preventing 6 million cervical cancer cases over the next century,” he said.
The study authors also said that recent advancements, such as lower-cost and single-dose vaccines, expanded screening programmes. Multi-age cohort vaccinations and efforts to include boys in vaccination campaigns can help make cervical cancer elimination feasible worldwide but require global, coordinated efforts from governments and international health agencies
Low uptake of HPV vaccination
India accounts for a fifth of all cervical cancer cases in the world, with it being the second most common form of cancer among Indian women. India reports over 1.2 lakh cases and 80,000 deaths each year. So, the HPV vaccination campaign for all 14-year-olds rolled out on February 28 this year was a welcome move.
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“It is true that the uptake of HPV vaccination is very slow/ low in India. There are multiple factors such as the timing of HPV vaccination launch just before the final examinations, with majority of schools on summer break in April and May. There was not enough awareness generation or demand generation from the public, no strong messages on social media, in fact negative messages, videos are also going viral,” Dr Smita Joshi, senior scientist at Prayas, said. Data from GoI’s central digital platform U-WIN portal suggests that till April 10 this year, only 10.63% of the 1.15 crore girls eligible for vaccination got their shot. Dr Joshi added that successful strategies from the neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Malaysia could be studied.
Cervical cancer screening coverage is also very low in India with less than 2% of the women getting screened, she said. “We need to screen at least 70% women aged 30 to 49 with an HPV test yet we are still using VIA. There is no vertical investment into the screening as well as vaccination and the programme implementation needs to be really examined again,” Dr Joshi said.
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