On Jan. 25, 2024, an historic study out of Scotland showed the real-world impact of vaccines against the human papillomavirus: The country had detected no cases of cervical cancer in women born between 1988-1996 who were fully vaccinated against HPV between the ages of 12 and 13.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is the first to monitor a national cohort of women over such a long time period and found no occurrence of cervical cancer.

The results underscore the importance of working to increase uptake of the HPV vaccine in the U.S., said Schmeler. Scotland, for example, introduced routine immunization in schools in 2008, and close to 90% of students in their fourth year of secondary school (equivalent to 10th grade in the U.S.) in the 2022-2023 school year had received at least one dose of the vaccine. In the U.S., where HPV vaccines are not administered in school, uptake among adolescents ages 13 to 17 is a little over 60%.