World Cancer Day, created in 2000, is a day for those affected by cancer to bring awareness and information to the world, while HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States and is also the leading cause of cervical cancer.
The HPV vaccine is supposed to be administered in three doses over six months and provides nearly 100 percent protection from the virus.
In a press release, Barbara Rimer, dean of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, said it’s important to promote the HPV vaccine in local communities.
“We are confident that if HPV vaccination for girls and boys is made a public health priority, hundreds of thousands will be protected from these HPV-associated diseases and cancers over their lifetimes,” Rimer said.
According to the press release, fewer than 40 percent of girls and about 21 percent of boys are reported to have done all three doses.
Emma Holcomb, a sophomore and an assistant at the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases who prefers the pronoun they, said there is room to improve the HPV conversation among young people and wants to end the stigma surrounding HPV.
Holcomb said this is a vaccine everyone needs, and it’s important to make that clear.
“I think a lot of people don’t want to talk about (HPV) because it’s about sex, and people don’t really want to talk about sex,” they said. “It’s really about normalizing that conversation.”