More Chinese women getting HPV vaccine in recent years

Inoculations of human papillomavirus vaccines among Chinese women have grown steadily in recent years but still lag behind developed countries as demand outstrips supply, a health expert said on Monday.

Wang Linhong, chief expert on chronic diseases at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a news conference that China had administered nearly 12.28 million HPV vaccines by the end of 2020, up from about 3.42 million by the end of 2018.

However, due to the large number of women eligible for HPV vaccines and limited supplies, the overall vaccination rate remains relatively low, she added.

China has so far approved five HPV vaccines for market, including two homegrown ones. Compared with some developed countries that have begun administering HPV vaccines to young girls for free more than a decade ago, the vaccine's coverage remains low in China.

Wang said that some regions have made progress by launching trial programs targeting junior high school students, with some cities having vaccinated over 90 percent of the target group.

She added that China will continue to encourage rollouts of campaigns for free vaccines and join efforts to address the shortage of supplies.

In the past decade, China has made significant improvements in maternal and child health, ranking high among all upper-middle-income countries around the world, according to the National Health Commission.

Song Li, director of the commission's Department of Maternal and Child Health, said during the news conference that the country's maternity mortality rate had dropped by 38 percent from 2011 to 16.1 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021.

During that period, the infant death rate also fell by 54 percent to five deaths per 1,000 live births, and the mortality rate for children under 5 fell by 58 percent to 7.1 per 1,000 live births.

"These death rates, which are key indicators of maternal and child health, have all dropped to the lowest level in history," she said. "They are also lower than the world average."

According to a plan released last year, China aims to further reduce the maternity death rate to 14.5 per 100,000 live births and the infant mortality rate to 5.2 per 1,000 live births by 2025.