HPV

The human papillomavirus can be spread through vaginal, anal, or oral sex and other intimate skin-to-skin contact. It is estimated that 80 percent of sexually active individuals are infected at some point every year in the United States. As stated by the National Cancer Institute, most HPV infections do not cause cancer. HPV can sometimes cause warts to appear around the genital area, throat, anus, and mouth but cause no disease. However, some HPV infections can cause different types of cancer. The HPV vaccine can prevent infections, genital warts and cancer.

Now women and men up to the age of 45 that did not receive the HPV vaccines during their childhood are recommended by CDC and FDA to acquire it. Although the vaccine may not protect the individual against all types of HPV strands, it does protect us from the most common ones. It used to be recommended that the vaccine should be administrated to individuals ranging from the age of 9 to 29 to protect people before being exposed to the virus. It was later discovered that by the age of 45 most people have not been exposed to all of the nine strands of HPV that the vaccine provides protection from. With this new information the range of age was increased.

After reading both of this articles, I am glad that research is being done to protect our population. I was very shocked to learn the majority of sexually active individuals will come in contact with this virus. I believe that many more individuals could benefit from this new discovery specially those who are not adequately vaccinated. After reading these articles, I also came to the realization that parents should be more informed about what the HPV vaccine can help prevent. The administration of this vaccine can save lives.