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they may be in for a boom time!.
A major breakthrough in the treatment of cervical cancer was today described as a "stunning development" which could mean the end of the disease. Cervical cancer is the second biggest killer after breast cancer for women aged 15 to 44. Each year, it kills more than 1,100 women in the UK and 15,000 across Europe. The drug, Gardasil, was found to be 100% effective at preventing changes in cells lining the cervix which signal the development of cancer. It could be available within a year following dramatic trial results. Gardasil is designed to protect against two strains of a virus called the human papilloma virus, or HPV. The strains, HPV 16 and 18, trigger 70% of cervical cancers, and the vaccine also acts against strains six and 11, which cause genital warts. Professor Margaret Stanley, an expert on HPV from Cambridge University, said this was a "stunning development". Speaking on BBC Breakfast, she said if there was blanket coverage this could put an end to cervical cancer for good. "We now have evidence that Gardasil is effective against the advanced-stage abnormalities of the cervix, called lesions, that lead to invasive cervical cancer," she said. "The smaller-scale preliminary HPV vaccine trials published to date have only indicated that this may be the case, but this study gives us very solid evidence. The results of [the study] are so exciting because of the sheer size of the trial and the fact that it demonstrated 100% efficacy." She added that although the virus was very common, cancer of the cervix was a rare consequence of it. The vaccine has been developed jointly by the pharmaceutical companies Sanofi Pasteur and Merck & Co Inc. Dr Eliav Barr, head of clinical development at Merck, said the vaccine worked because cervical cancer was caused by a virus. It would not be effective against other cancers, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. "HPV causes cervical cancer. There are other rare cancers which HPV also causes but the main cancer is cervical cancer. "What we were able to show is that the vaccine prevents high-grade pre-cancers and actually non-invasive cervical cancer. "For the very first time these studies are now definitive in that the vaccine can prevent these high-grade pre-cancerous lesions and also non-invasive cervical cancer." Professor Peter Rigby, chief executive at the Institute of Cancer Research, said: "These results are extremely encouraging. "Nearly 3,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, so it is very exciting to hear it may be possible to drastically reduce this number in the foreseeable future." Dr Anne Szarewski, clinical consultant at Cancer Research UK, said: "These results add to the mounting evidence that cervical cancer vaccines offer great promise for the future." Gardasil's manufacturers are on track to apply for a US Food and Drug Administration licence to market the vaccine before the end of this year. This will be followed by a licence application to the European Medicines Agency. It is in head-to-head competition with another HPV vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline called Cervarix, which is also undergoing trials. The vaccines could be among the biggest-selling drugs of all time. One analyst has estimated that Gardasil could be worth £567m a year. But their use will be controversial. Although teenagers and adults took part in the trials, in practice the vaccine is likely to be administered to girls as young as 10 to 13. Because HPV is transmitted through sexual intercourse, older sexually active girls are more likely to be infected. Some critics have argued that treating young girls with the vaccine might encourage under-age sex. But experts point out that cervical cancer affects some 470,000 women a year worldwide and 33,500 in Europe, and survival chances are good if the disease is detected and treated early. Amid growing concern that the world may be on a collision course with a deadly avian flu pandemic, health officials from about 80 countries are meeting in Washington to map a collaborative strategy for minimizing the deaths and disruption an outbreak might wreak. The meeting, hosted by the State Department, marks the beginning of a major international trust-building project that U.S. officials said must be successful if scientists and public health officials are to "Pandemics are diseases without borders and that's why we're focusing our attention on them," said William R. Steiger, the Department of Health and Human Services' point person for international health, in an e-mail yesterday. "We know that a threat against one nation is a threat against the world." Today's meeting is part of a flurry of activity in the United States and abroad, all spurred by evidence that a strain of bird virus endemic in Southeast Asia is accumulating mutations that could ease its lethal spread from person to person. Scientists fear that such a virus could rapidly circle the globe and leave tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people dead. President Bush is scheduled to meet with drug company executives today to discuss strategies for developing new and speedier methods for making flu vaccine. Current techniques take many months to ramp up -- a time scale that is acceptable for the routine annual production of vaccines but that would be wholly inadequate if a rapidly spreading and especially deadly strain of avian flu were to erupt. Vaccine-makers have expressed concern about liability issues and other financial risks inherent in quick production and emergency distribution of new and relatively untested vaccines. On Capitol Hill, legislators are starting to focus on several bills that take aim at the looming threat. Some, including the Bioshield II Act, attempt to address the need for better flu vaccines, while another, the Pandemic Preparedness and Response Act, would support the federal stockpiling and distribution of drugs and vaccines, improve international surveillance for outbreaks and strengthen domestic public health infrastructures. Federal officials also said yesterday they are very close to releasing a final draft of a national pandemic preparedness plan, a long-awaited blueprint that would address such important but sensitive issues as when to impose quarantines, under what conditions certain public health duties ought to be turned over to the military and how best to distribute antiviral medicines or prototype vaccines to those at greatest risk. "What we need to be doing now is the basic planning of how we get our communities through 12 to 18 months of a pandemic," said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. "Ninety-five out of 100 will live," Osterholm said. "But with the nation in crisis, will we have food and water? Are we going to have police and security? Will people come to work at all?" Such questions may sound hysterical, Osterholm acknowledged, noting that there has been some political backlash lately against Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt |
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