When the first HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine was approved in 2006, scientists knew it worked in clinical trials. What they could not yet know was how well it would hold up over decades in the real world — and whether protection would endure long enough to prevent the cancers that typically take years to develop.
Nearly twenty years on, the data from multiple countries is now answering that question with remarkable clarity. A major study by Public Health Scotland, carried out in collaboration with the Universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde, tracked women who had been vaccinated through Scotland's school-based programme since its introduction in 2008. The results were striking: among women vaccinated at ages 12 or 13, the vaccine continued to provide strong protection against cervical disease more than 12 years after the jab was given. In one of the study's most striking findings, no cases of invasive cervical cancer had been recorded among women who received the vaccine at those ages during the entire follow-up period.
Scotland's findings are not isolated. A national study in the Netherlands, drawing on data from more than 100,000 women, found that those who had been fully vaccinated had approximately 90% lower risk of developing invasive cervical cancer compared to unvaccinated women — after up to 15 years of follow-up. In Denmark, analysis of vaccinated women showed that infections with high-risk HPV strains had been almost eliminated more than a decade after vaccination. A major set of Cochrane reviews — regarded as the gold standard in medical evidence assessment — has confirmed that girls vaccinated at or before the age of 16 are 80% less likely to develop cervical cancer than unvaccinated girls, with no evidence of serious side effects.
Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide and causes more than 300,000 deaths each year, the vast majority in lower-income countries where screening programmes are less accessible. By the end of 2025, 159 countries had introduced HPV vaccination into their national programmes. The evidence now suggests that for the generation of girls vaccinated in their early teens, the promise made in 2006 is being kept.