- A Lancet study found zero cervical cancer deaths among women aged 20 to 24 in England between 2020 and 2024, the first time on record since the HPV vaccine arrived.
- Researchers estimate England’s HPV program has already prevented around 200 cervical cancer deaths, with many more expected as vaccinated women age.
- Vaccine uptake has slipped to 76% of 15-year-old girls, below the 90% the WHO says is needed to eliminate the disease.
For the first time on record, not a single young woman in England died of cervical cancer over a five-year stretch – and researchers credit a vaccine given to 12-year-olds.
Between 2020 and 2024, no woman aged 20 to 24 in England died of cervical cancer, according to a new study in The Lancet. In the early 2000s, roughly 50 women under 35 were dying of it every year.
The women in that youngest group were offered the HPV vaccine at age 12 or 13, and about nine in 10 took it. Without it, researchers estimate around 23 of them would have died. None did.
“It’s incredible to think that a single jab can almost eliminate a particular type of cancer,” Peter Sasieni, the study’s lead researcher at Queen Mary University of London, told the BBC.
Almost all cervical cancers are caused by HPV, one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. England started offering the vaccine to 12- and 13-year-old girls in 2008, with a catch-up campaign for older teens.
Earlier research showed the vaccine cut cancer cases. This study adds the part that matters most: it cuts deaths. Some scientists had worried it might only stop early cancers that screening would catch anyway. The authors say that fear was misplaced.
All told, the program is estimated to have prevented around 200 deaths in England so far, and researchers say that is just the start, as vaccinated women reach the ages when cervical cancer usually turns deadly.
There is a catch. Uptake has slipped to 76% of girls vaccinated by age 15 in 2024-2025, short of the 90% the World Health Organization says is needed to eliminate the disease.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, which funded the study, called the findings an “incredible milestone” but warned the gains are not guaranteed. “It’s essential that the UK Government and health systems urgently address this with targeted action to reach communities where uptake is the lowest,” she told the BBC.
Sasieni, for his part, is looking down the road. “As vaccinated generations grow older, we’ll see many more lives saved from cervical cancer,” he said.
