Cancer can be beaten

THE eradication of cervical cancer is on the horizon after the development of a far more effective HPV vaccine, an Australian researcher says.

A clinical trial of 14,000 women in 18 countries has shown the improved human papillomavirus vaccine cut the rate of cervical cancer by another 23 per cent on top of the existing Gardasil vaccine.

“The eradication of cervical cancer is now firmly within our sights,” Professor Suzanne Garland, of the Royal Women’s Hospital’s Centre for Women’s Infectious Diseases, said. It can also protect against 90 per cent of HPV that causes vulvar, anal and vaginal cancers.