With the achievements of decades of work on epidemiology, vaccines and test development, clinical trials, and new screening tools coming into public health and clinical use, the past years have been an exciting time for the HPV prevention community. High income countries and some middle income countries have begun routine use of the vaccine and the newer screening tests in various ways, even low income countries are beginning to establish pilot programs made possible with GAVI funding from GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance and dramatically lower prices of vaccine for GAVI eligible countries.
Because of the availability of techniques that facilitate access to prevention, screening and treatment, we believe there is great value added in the establishment of an independent international multidisciplinary HPV Prevention Board of top experts in the field. Experts who provide evidence based reflection and guidance on strategic, technical, and policy issues that will occur as we move forward in the implementation of our control programs.
The HPV Prevention Board structure and function is based on 24 years of insights and experience of the highly successful Viral Hepatitis Prevention Board (VHPB) that performed these functions during the fruitful rollout of Hepatitis B immunization and control programs.