Consultant urologist Dr George Lee Eng Geap, or a.k.a Dr G, enlightens on how vaccination for human papillomavirus (HPV) for both genders can become a gamechanger.
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00:00HPV is also called human papillomavirus.
00:03The first thing you think about HPV, you think about cervical cancer.
00:08It's true there is a link between HPV infection and eventually might change form to become
00:13cervical cancer.
00:21The person who worked out that link is Professor Hao Sen, who initially suggested this infection
00:28can cause cancer and everybody laughed at him.
00:31By 2008, this is well recognized and he received a Nobel Prize.
00:37So what exactly happens?
00:40During the infections of HPV in the cervix, majority of women can probably clear this
00:45infection but some minority, the infection itself will change form and eventually lead
00:52to cervical cancer.
00:54Think about these statistics, more than 500,000 women are newly diagnosed with cervical cancer
01:01every year and out of that, 85% are in developing world.
01:07So in fact, there is a beacon of hope that cervical cancer can be eradicated if the women
01:14are protected by HPV vaccine.
01:19But if boys and girls are both protected by cervical cancer vaccine, then this can
01:26eliminate completely.
01:29Actually there is a scientific model that show that if a vaccine coverage is about 40%,
01:37girls protection is about 70% and that will create a herd immunity of about 50% in boys.
01:44But if the coverage only for girls is achieving about 80%, then protection for girls is about
01:5293% but for boys it's only about 70%.
01:57But think about this, if the coverage is 80% for both boys and girls, then you reach a
02:05100% protection against cervical cancer in girls and you also have protection against
02:14HPV induced cancer in boys.
02:19So therefore, we know HPV can cause cancer.
02:23We also know that HPV is a form of sexually transmitted infection.
02:28We also know that gender neutral vaccination, meaning both boys and girls are vaccinated,
02:36this disease can potentially be eliminated within two decades.
02:41For next week, we're going to focus on another havoc that HPV cause.
02:45In fact, you won't believe it, HPV can also cause oropharyngeal cancer.
02:51Stay tuned for next week's Putting Dr. G on the Spot.
02:58For more information visit www.FEMA.gov