Can Catch-Up Vaccinations Fill the Void Left by Suspension of the Governmental Recommendation of HPV Vaccine in Japan?

Asami Yagi; Yutaka Ueda; Satoshi Nakagawa; Sayaka Ikeda; Mamoru Kakuda; Kosuke Hiramatsu; Ai Miyoshi; Eiji Kobayashi; Toshihiro Kimura; Taichi Mizushima; Yukio Suzuki; Masayuki Sekine; Kei Hirai; Tomio Nakayama; Etsuko Miyagi; Takayuki Enomoto; Tadashi Kimura

doi:10.3390/vaccines10091455

Can Catch-Up Vaccinations Fill the Void Left by Suspension of the Governmental Recommendation of HPV Vaccine in Japan?

Vaccines (Basel). 2022 Sep 2;10(9):1455. doi: 10.3390/vaccines10091455.

Authors

Asami Yagi¹, Yutaka Ueda¹, Satoshi Nakagawa¹, Sayaka Ikeda², Mamoru Kakuda¹, Kosuke Hiramatsu¹, Ai Miyoshi¹, Eiji Kobayashi¹, Toshihiro Kimura¹, Taichi Mizushima³, Yukio Suzuki³, Masayuki Sekine⁴, Kei Hirai⁵, Tomio Nakayama⁶, Etsuko Miyagi³, Takayuki Enomoto⁴, Tadashi Kimura¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
² Division of Cancer Statistics Integration, Center for Cancer Control and Information Services, National Cancer Center, Tokyo 104-0045, Japan.
³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Yokohama City University School of Medical, Yokohama 236-0004, Japan.
⁴ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata 951-8510, Japan.
⁵ Clinical Psychology, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
⁶ Division of Screening Assessment and Management, Center for Public Health Sciences, National Cancer Center, Tokyo 104-0045, Japan.

Abstract

In 2013, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW) in Japan announced a suspension of the governmental recommendation for routine HPV vaccinations. In 2020, MHLW started individual notifications of HPV vaccine to the targeted girls. In April 2022, the governmental recommendation was restarted, and catch-up vaccinations started. We evaluated the benefits and limitations of the MHLW's new vaccination strategies by estimating the lifetime risk for cervical cancer for each birth FY under different scenarios to suggest a measure for the vaccine suspension generation. It was revealed that catch-up immunization coverage among the unvaccinated must reach as high as 90% in FY2022, when the program begins, in order to reduce the risk of the females already over the targeted ages to the same level or lower than that of women born in FY1994-1999 who had high HPV vaccination rates. For women whose vaccination coverage waned because of their birth FYs, strong recommendations for cervical cancer screening should be implemented.

Keywords: HPV vaccine; Japan; catch-up vaccination; cervical cancer; suspension of recommendation.

Abstract

Grants and funding