Thursday September 25 2025

Hacker Times

Denmark close to wiping out cancer-causing HPV strains after vaccine roll-out

Discussion

Denmark has effectively eliminated infections with the two biggest cancer-causing strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) since the vaccine was introduced in 2008, data suggests.

The research, published in Eurosurveillance, could have implications for how vaccinated populations are screened in the coming years – particularly as people increasingly receive vaccines that protect against multiple high-risk types of HPV virus.

Deadly cancer

After breast cancer, cervical cancer is the most common type of cancer among women aged 15 to 44 years in Europe, and human papillomavirus (HPV) is the leading cause.

At least 14 high-risk types of the virus have been identified, and before Denmark introduced the HPV vaccine in 2008, HPV types 16 and 18 accounted for around three quarters (74%) of cervical cancers in the country.

Initially, girls were offered a vaccine that protected against four types of HPV: 16, 18, plus the lower risk types 6 and 11. However, since 2017, Danish girls have been offered a vaccine that protects against nine types of HPV – including those accounting for approximately 90% of cervical cancers.

To better understand the impact that these vaccination programmes have had on HPV prevalence as vaccinated girls reach cervical screening age (23 to 64 years in Denmark), Dr Mette Hartmann Nonboe at Zealand University Hospital in Nykøbing Falster and colleagues analysed up to three consecutive cervical cell samples collected from Danish women between 2017 and 2024, when they were 22 to 30 years of age.

“In 2017, one of the first birth cohorts of women in Denmark who were HPV-vaccinated as teenage girls in 2008 reached the screening age of 23 years,” Nonboe explained.

“Compared with previous generations, these women are expected to have a considerably lower risk of cervical cancer, and it is pertinent to assess [their] future need for screening.”

High-risk HPV elimination

The research found that infection with the high-risk HPV types (HPV16/18) covered by the vaccine has been almost eliminated.

“Before vaccination, the prevalence of HPV16/18 was between 15 and 17%, which has decreased in vaccinated women to less than one percent by 2021,” the researchers said.

In addition, prevalence of HPV types 16 and 18 in women who had not been vaccinated against HPV was five percent. This strongly suggests that the vaccine has reduced the circulation of these HPV types in general population, to the extent that even unvaccinated women are now less likely to be infected with them – so called “population immunity” – the researchers said.

Despite this good news, roughly one third of women screened during the study period still had infection with high-risk HPV types not covered by the original vaccines – and new infections with these types were more frequent among vaccinated women, compared to unvaccinated ones.

This is expected to fall once girls who received the more recent ‘nine-valent’ vaccine reach screening age. At this point, the screening guidelines should potentially be reconsidered, Nonboe and colleagues said.

OneDeuxTriSeiGo•7 days ago

> what is different between the vaccines?

The shingles vaccine is a larger/more aggressive dose than the chickenpox vaccine.

And nowadays chickenpox vaccine uses live attenuated viruses (i.e. modified to be non-infectious but still look the same) whereas the shingles vaccine uses recombinant proteins. This allows the shingles vaccine to deliver the higher viral load that they want for inoculating against shingles without putting a bunch of live viruses into the body.

It's also worth noting that the recombinant vaccine is more effective for shingles compared to the equivalent viral load live vaccine by a significant margin. It's something like 90% reduction in incidence vs 50%.

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> How it presents shouldn't matter as much?

It's not an all or nothing thing but it's a matter of percentages.

And the big reason why they present differently is that chickenpox kind of attacks every part of the body since it's new. It of course does best at infecting the skin and nerves but it mildly affects every part of the body. But then it goes dormant in the nerves because that's where it's most "compatible" and the body is the worst at fighting it.

So then with shingles your body still has the immunity but the reactivated virus is able to out-compete your immunity in the nerves and it wakes up in whatever specific nerve and spreads along that nerve. This is why shingles generally presents in a band on the body. It's spreading along a specific nerve "line" rather than spreading throughout the whole body, blood, and all.

And so the because the infection can't spread broadly throughout your body it ends up concentrated in that location and presumably the higher viral load combined with focusing on the specific proteins rather than the whole virus increases the body's sensitivity to these flair ups, catching them before they can reach momentum. And then that focused immune training sits on top of the body's existing immunity for the initial "whole body" presentation of the virus.

bbarnett•8 days ago

That's a little like saying nuclear bombs aren't a technology, but a human problem. And you bet, they sure are, but it's a lot harder to wipe out everyone, if the nutjobs in your community just have a pointed stick.

And 'nutjobs' may be pejorative, but I'll hold on to it as apt. At the same time I assign no blame, for it is an issue of cognition. The best way I can describe it is, intelligence is not a single factor. And it's not even a few factors. It's a massive bar graph, with 1000s upon 1000s of bars, each delineating a different aspect of intelligence.

A lucky few may score high on all those bars, yet even the most intelligent of us tend to score high on only some of those bars. And my point is, I've seen people immensely intelligent on some of those bars, yet astonishingly deficient on others.

We love to make fun of politicians, so I'll use one as an example here. Politicians tend to be incredibly personable, and very difficult to dislike in person. They exude congeniality, they read you like a book, and can often orate your wallet completely out of your pocket, and you'll thank them for it too. It's how they managed to go so far politically, yet some of these same politicians have severe and massive deficiencies in cognition.

Back to the pointed sticks, and the nutjobs who would wield them pre-tech, these people are simply as they are. Yet in the past, you'd see one nutjob in a community, and they'd be surrounded by normalcy, it would temper them, mitigate their effect, sand off their edges so to speak.

Yet as our communities grew in size and scope, these individuals could finally meet more of their ilk. A large city might have dozens of them, larger still cities hundreds, and they'd meet up. And as technology grew, and access to the printing press become possible for all, and for less and less cost, these same people could then send their madness in newsletter form to even those small communities where maybe only one nutjob existed.

But those people needed to still connect in some way. Maybe through an ad in the back of a magazine, or something akin yet far less gated by 'normals'.

Yet today? Now? Algorithms match you up with all those nutjobs. Where before you might live in isolation, and the friends you had might scoff at that weird idea you have, now you've found a community of hundreds, or thousands just like you! And they all affirm your madness, they pat you on the back, they congratulate you for seeing the light! They whisper all those sweet nothings into your ear, all those secret things you knew were true, and they listen to all you say on the subject.

For the first time in your life you have a home, a community, and before TikTok, or some weird forum, it would have never all been possible. You'd have been isolated, even in the age of magazines, and print, for you'd have never found one another.

And worse, now profit enters the system. Those who would steal, or thieve, or build bridges with sub-standard concrete for profit, or anything for money regardless of cost to us all, appear on this scene. They see those nutjobs, and they seek to profit from them. They own youtube, or tiktok channels, and often do not believe in anything but profit. They'll tell you anything you want to hear, espouse any crazy idea, and like that bridge built with substandard concrete, they'll take the money and run as society collapses around them.

This profit motive was always there, see cults. Yet the reach and scope was just not what it is today, there is so much more range given to a single person now.