In a novel study experts are calling for young boys for vaccination against sexually transmitted virus after statistics showed that half of them are carrying the infection. Several sprains of HPV (human papilloma virus) are recognized to cause cervical cancer in women and have been associated with higher rates of oral cancer.
The study conducted by research team from the Cancer Centre and Research Institute in Florida analyzed nearly twelve hundred men aged eighteen to seventy from US, Brazil and Mexico. The study found that men who had fifty or more female partners were more than twice likely to have the cancer causing HPV infection in comparison to those with one partner.
The earlier study suggested that about eight out of ten sexually active women contracted HPV infection at some point in their lives. The infection cleared itself up within two years in some eight percent of cases but women were at high risk of re-infection.
It was also discovered that every year six percent of men in the universal population will acquire the cancer-causing HPV type 16, reported the study published in The Lancet. The experts encouraged British experts to call for boys to be vaccinated to twig the spread of the virus and prevent genital warts and anal cancers.
Both are supposed to be caused by HPV. The eminent association between HPV and cervical cancer has escorted to the routine vaccination of girls aged twelve to thirteen. The study confirms that men are a reservoir of HPV infection and transmit this virus to women, explained Prof Lawrence Young from the University of Birmingham.
Therefore, HPV vaccination of men would not only go halves avoiding cervical cancer in women but also collision on the mounting prevalence of HPV-related oral cancer. Oral cancer has increased by fifty percent in men and claims more than two thousand live every year in UK, added Prof Young.