High Effectiveness of the Bivalent Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine Against Incident and Persistent HPV Infections up to 6 Years After Vaccination in Young Dutch Women

Background. Monitoring vaccine effectiveness (VE) in vaccination programs is of importance for assessing the impact of immunization. This study aimed to estimate the VE of the bivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine against incident and 12-month persistent infections up to 6 years after vaccination. Methods. In 2009-2010, girls eligible for the vaccination catch-up campaign (ie, those aged 14-16 years) were enrolled into a prospective cohort. Annually, participants completed a questionnaire and submitted a self-collected vaginal swab sample for HPV testing by the SPF10-LiPA(25) assay. We compared sociodemographic characteristics and infection rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated girls. The VE was adjusted for characteristics related to HPV vaccination status. We used combined end points for VE estimation. Results. In total, 1635 women, of whom 54% were fully vaccinated, were included for VE estimation. The adjusted VE against HPV16 and 18 persistent infections amounted to 97.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 83.5%-99.7%). We found a VE against HPV31, 33, and 45 persistent infections of 61.8% (95% CI, 16.7%-82.5%). We found no indications that the protection against vaccine or cross-protective types changes over time. Conclusion. Our findings of nearly full protection against vaccine-type persistent infections and significant cross-protection to nonvaccine types in a population-based cohort study confirm the effectiveness of the bivalent HPV vaccine as estimated in trials. We found no indications for waning protection up to 6 years after vaccination.