Gardasil is the second such drug to gain access to patients across China.

 

加卫苗是中国第二款获准对病人使用的疫苗。

 

Pharmaceutical¹ company Merck recently won approval from the China Food and Drug Administration to sell its human papillomavirus vaccine², Gardasil, to help women fight cervical cancer.

 

Developed by the US-based company in 2006, the vaccine has proved effective in protecting against the virus, better known as HPV, the chief cause of cervical cancer. The virus is found in almost all cervical cancer cases.

 

Gardasil is the first HPV vaccine in the world and the second to be licensed³ for use in China.

 

In July, Cervarix, an HPV vaccine developed by pharmaceutical GlaxoSmithKline, received approval to be sold on the Chinese mainland after almost 10 years of seeking approval.

 

Gardasil is expected to be commercially available on the mainland in three to six months, which means women will no longer have to seek vaccinations⁴ outside of the mainland, such as Hong Kong.

 

After breast cancer, cervical cancer is the second-most common cancer in women ages 15 to 44 in China. Statistics from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention show China reports more than 130,000 cervical cancer cases a year, accounting⁵ for 28 percent of global total.

 

The HPV vaccine, as the first anti-cancer vaccine in the world, has proved effective in preventing cervical cancer and is seen as a breakthrough in the fight against cancer.

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