The world's first HPV vaccine, Gardasil. Credit:Peter Rae HPV vaccine co-creator and Translational Research Institute chief executive officer Professor Frazer from the Diamantina Institute at Brisbane said almost a decade later, the virus was found to be a very common infection. "One in two of us will get it in our lifetime so it is extremely common infection," he said. "The chances of you getting a cancer if you have the virus is about one in 100. "Most of us get the virus, we don't know we have it, we get rid of it ourselves and we never knew we have it but of course while we have it we are infectious and can pass it on to other people."

He worked with his colleague, the late molecular virologist Dr Jian Zhou and a research team to use genetic engineering to build a virus replica in order to create the vaccine, some 16 years later. Professor Frazer said in addition to protecting women against cervical cancer, the vaccine works to protect against 90 per cent of all HPV-related cancers in men, including head, neck and genital tract cancers. "Five per cent of all cancers worldwide are caused by papillomavirus infection, cervical cancer is the big one, but there are also some cancers in the throat and mouth we recognise are being increasingly caused by these viruses and then on top of that are a number of rarer cancers caused by these viruses," he said. "About 20 per cent of all cancers are caused by a virus infection and about a quarter of those are caused by papillomavirus." With more than 187 million doses of the vaccine administered across 130 countries, the number of new cases of cervical cancer in women has halved.

Professor Frazer, who is also the chairman of the Australian Cancer Research Foundation's Medical Research Advisory Committee, said the vaccine could eliminate HPV-associated cancers within 40 years. "Observations from over the past 10 years are that the HPV vaccines, if delivered effectively to the majority of 10-12 year-old-girls in the developing world from today forward, should lead to the global elimination of new cervical and other HPV associated cancers by 2050," he said. He said there was more to be done and was now looking at a way of treating those already infected with the virus. "If you look worldwide, a quarter of a million women worldwide die of cervical cancer every year and most that will die in the next 20 years are already infected with the virus and therefore for them the vaccine hasn't got anything to offer," he said. "We are looking at a way to treat people who are already infected with the virus so they can get rid of it before they get cancer.

"If you go to the developing world screening programs like we have in Australia are just not available and therefore the only protection would be if we could find something that we could give to women who are already infected and that would stop the infection in its tracks." "Up until now we have done the pap smear test and that is looking for the chances that the virus causes, in the future we are also going to screen for the virus itself." Girls and boys aged between 12-13 years in Australia can receive the HPV vaccine free of charge as part of the National HPV Vaccination Program. Stay informed. Like Brisbane Times on Facebook