Health Officials Seek To Increase Vaccination Rates For HPV

Wisconsin health officials are hoping to increase vaccination rates for one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, known as HPV, or human papillomavirus.

Doctors said that parents are becoming less resistant to having their children vaccinated, but other barriers also need to be overcome.

According to the Wisconsin Immunization Registry, only 34 percent of females and 11 percent of males were completely vaccinated against HPV infections. A series of three shots are recommended, starting at age 11, to prevent genital warts and cancers of the cervix and throat.

Dr. Tom Murwin, a pediatrician at Dean Clinic in Stoughton, said that once children get older, they see the doctor less often and so there are fewer opportunities to get the shots.

“People don’t come in for visits regularly during adolescence,” Murwin said. “They become more like adults in many ways, and one of those ways is adults don’t go to the doctor for preventive health visits, whether it’s Pap smears or colonoscopies or whether it’s (a) breast cancer screening — all of which have been shown to be beneficial.”

Murwin was a speaker at a recent HPV seminar to talk about the vaccine’s effectiveness and to come up with ways to boost vaccination rates. Other vaccines are required before a child can go to school, but Murwin doesn’t see the HPV vaccine being mandated anytime soon.

“I think there’s a lot of public misperception about this vaccine being a vaccine that is going to allow their kids to have more liberties with sex. And really, this vaccine is a cancer vaccine,” he said. “And if we can get the word out that this vaccine will prevent cancers 10 to 40 years down the road, then people will understand why we want more to get this vaccine.”

Federal health officials hope to increase HPV vaccination rates to 80 percent by the year 2020.