India crosses 80 lakh HPV doses with four states at full coverage
Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram have vaccinated their entire identified target group, the health ministry said. Uttar Pradesh alone has vaccinated more than 22 lakh girls.
Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram have vaccinated 100 per cent of their identified target populations under the National HPV Vaccination Campaign, the Union health ministry said on Friday. More than 80 lakh doses have been administered nationally since the campaign began in February.
Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Assam have each crossed 90 per cent coverage. Karnataka has passed 85 per cent, and Chhattisgarh, Sikkim, Kerala, Telangana and Odisha have crossed 60 per cent.
The scale in one state
Uttar Pradesh has recorded the highest number of vaccinations of any state, with more than 22 lakh adolescent girls vaccinated under the campaign — more than a quarter of the national total on its own.
That concentration is a function of population, but reaching that many individual girls through the public health network in seven months is a logistical result rather than an arithmetic one.
How the campaign works
The National HPV Vaccination Campaign was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February. Under it, 14-year-old girls are offered a voluntary, free single-dose HPV vaccination at government health facilities, with parental consent.
According to the Registrar General of India's 2021 estimates, around 1.2 crore girls make up the annual cohort of 14-year-olds expected to benefit each year.
The single-dose schedule matters for reach. A course requiring return visits loses people at every step, particularly in areas where the health facility is not close by; one dose turns the problem into a single contact.
What the ministry credits
The ministry attributed the progress to coordinated implementation by states and union territories, sustained community mobilisation and the engagement of district-level health teams.
States have adopted context-specific approaches to reach eligible girls through the public health delivery network, including in rural, urban, remote and geographically difficult areas, it said.
The campaign has placed emphasis on community engagement and credible information, with parents, healthcare providers, teachers and frontline health workers engaged to address concerns and counter misinformation relating to HPV vaccination, according to the ministry.
That last point is not incidental. HPV vaccination programmes in several countries have been slowed by circulating claims about safety, and the ministry has treated the information work as part of the delivery rather than separate from it.
The digital layer
The programme uses the U-WIN platform, which allows programme managers to monitor coverage at district level, identify gaps and missed beneficiaries, and plan accordingly.
A district-level view is what makes the difference between a campaign that reports a national average and one that can find the blocks it has not reached. The state figures released on Friday — a spread running from 100 per cent down to 60 per cent and below — are the visible output of that monitoring.
Safety and the global record
The ministry set the campaign against the international experience with the vaccine. More than 800 million doses of HPV vaccines have been distributed globally, it said, providing substantial real-world evidence on their use and safety.
At present, 87 per cent of upper-middle-income countries, 78 per cent of lower-middle-income countries and 54 per cent of low-income countries have adopted HPV vaccines in their national immunisation programmes.
All vaccination sessions under the Indian campaign are conducted under the supervision of trained medical officers at government health facilities, which are linked to round-the-clock facilities for managing rare adverse events following immunisation.
The remaining phase
The ministry said the campaign is moving into its final phase, with the focus on reaching remaining eligible beneficiaries so that no eligible girl is left behind.
The states listed at above 60 per cent are where the outstanding numbers sit. The ministry did not publish figures for states not named in the statement, and did not give a completion date for the campaign.
ThePrint carried the report from PTI news service.
