"Fourteenth time running!" Jiang Yao complained in WeChat Moments.
On August 25, the Shenzhen Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention held the nine-valent HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine lottery that month, which was also the 14th lottery that Jiang Yao participated in in the past two years, but she still did not win the lottery.
Next year Jiang Yao will reach the 26-year-old red line, and the countdown of the number of times that he can participate in the nine-valent HPV vaccine lottery will start.
On the 25th, the staff of the Immunization Planning Institute of the Shenzhen Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that there were 222,951 applicants for the nine-valent HPV vaccine lottery in August, a slight decrease from the nearly 240,000 applicants in the previous phase. The number of midterm signings has increased by about 1,000 compared with the previous period. The number of historical numbers is the largest, with a total of 5761 places.
However, the calculation of the above data shows that the winning rate of this lottery is still only 2.58%.
The World Health Organization estimates that there are more than 470,000 new cases of cervical cancer each year in the world. The number of new cases of cervical cancer each year in China accounts for about 28% of the world's total incidence.
Due to the discovery of the relationship between HPV and the etiology of cervical cancer, cervical cancer has become a cancer with a clear cause, which also makes the majority of women panic about HPV infection.
As the first line of defense for disease prevention, HPV vaccine has been injected on a large scale in many places around the world.
my country has successively introduced bivalent, quadrivalent and ninth-valent HPV vaccines in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively.
However, due to the large national demand and limited production, HPV vaccines, especially nine-valent vaccines, are facing a difficult situation to obtain a single shot.
The nine-valent HPV vaccine that cannot be shaken
On the afternoon of August 25th, Shi Li received a text message of "winning the lottery" from the Shenzhen Health Commission, which means that she has obtained the qualification for the appointment of the nine-valent HPV vaccine.
Shi Li told China Business News that this is the best news she has received this year.
On the same day, Shi Li made an appointment on the WeChat public account lottery system of the "Shenzhen Health and Health Commission" to make an appointment at a designated social health hospital for vaccination close to home.
Ms. Chen, a medical worker at the vaccination site of Shangtang Road Community Health Service Center (hereinafter referred to as "Community Health Center"), Longhua District, Shenzhen, told reporters that the probability of winning the lottery of the 9-valent HPV vaccine is too low. On the contrary, the quadrivalent HPV vaccine is currently in its There is still supply in the social health center where you are located. Make an appointment now and you can get vaccinated the next day.
Ms. Chen also expressed understanding that after all, the preventive effect of the nine-valent HPV vaccine is currently the best.
The bivalent vaccine mainly targets HPV virus types 16 and 18; the tetravalent vaccine targets HPV virus types 6, 11, 16, and 18; and the nine price vaccine targets HPV virus types 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58.
HPV virus type 16 and type 18 belong to two high-risk types. More than 80% of cervical cancers in the Chinese population are caused by these two viruses.
Vaccine expert Tao Lina told CBN reporters that the current bivalent and quadrivalent HPV vaccines in terms of preventing cervical cancer can theoretically achieve a prevention rate of 84%, and the nine-valent vaccine can achieve a prevention rate of 92%. The difference between the vaccines is 8%, but at the same time the price is also very different, so these vaccines have their own advantages.
According to the Shenzhen Health and Health Commission, the current nine-valent HPV vaccine is at its own expense. The price is 1,323 yuan per dose (including 1298 yuan vaccine fee and 25 yuan service fee), and 3 doses in the whole course, totaling 3969 yuan.
The price of the bivalent HPV vaccine is 605 yuan per dose, and the three doses totals 1815 yuan; the quadrivalent HPV vaccine is 823 yuan per dose, and the three doses total 2469 yuan. The bivalent and quadrivalent HPV vaccines can use medical insurance.
It is reported that currently, HPV vaccines from three companies have been approved for the market worldwide, including the quadrivalent and ninth-valent vaccines of MSD in the United States, the bivalent vaccines of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the United Kingdom and Xiamen Wantai in my country. Canghai's domestic bivalent vaccine.
In other words, at present, there is only one manufacturer of Merck & Co., Ltd. in the world for quadrivalent and quaternary vaccines.
For people who have not lost the 9-valent HPV vaccine, the Shenzhen Health and Health Commission has suggested that both bivalent and quadrivalent HPV vaccines can prevent more than 70% of cervical cancer, and quadrivalent can prevent more than 90% of genital warts.
At the same time, even the nine-valent vaccine cannot prevent cervical cancer 100%, so no matter how many vaccines are vaccinated, cervical cancer screening should be carried out regularly, including HPV examination and cytological examination.
Can domestic HPV vaccine be broken when it enters the market?
In China, the vaccination age for domestic and imported bivalent HPV vaccines is 9 to 45 years old, the vaccination age for quadrivalent imported HPV vaccines is 20 to 45 years old, and the vaccination age for nine-valent imported HPV vaccines is 16 to 26 years old. .
Calculated according to the age range of 9 to 45 years old, China's HPV vaccine age-appropriate women may exceed 300 million to 400 million.
According to data from the China Commercial Industry Research Institute, China Food and Drug Administration issued 1.46 million HPV vaccines in 2017; 7.13 million in 2018; and 10.8754 million in 2019.
According to the three-shot vaccination procedure per person, the supply of these vaccines is far from meeting actual demand.
According to data from Zhongtai Securities, HPV vaccine has grown into China's first vaccine category with sales exceeding 10 billion yuan in 2019.
In 2019, a total of about 10.88 million HPV vaccines were issued in batches. Based on the winning bid prices of the three main varieties, the total market exceeded 10 billion yuan.
Among them, 2.01 million pieces of GlaxoSmithKline bivalent vaccine, 5.54 million pieces of Merck tetravalent vaccine, and 3.32 million pieces of Merck quaternary vaccine.
Taolina said that the main reason why the nine-valent HPV vaccine is currently in demand is that there is a huge global demand for this type of vaccine. In particular, many countries have included the vaccine in the list of free vaccinations, requiring more than 80% of its residents to have it. Get the vaccine.
However, the current production capacity of manufacturers is limited, which has caused the current shortage of supply.
On December 31, 2019, the National Medical Products Administration issued an announcement stating that Xiamen Wantai Canghai Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Wantai Company”) has approved the bivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (E. coli) (trade name: Xinkening) listing injection application, the price is 329 yuan / bottle, suitable for 9~45 years old women, among them, 9~14 years old women only need 2 injections, 15~45 years old women need 3 injections.
It is reported that the vaccine was jointly developed by Wantai Company and Xiamen University, and the first domestic cervical cancer vaccine transformed by Wantai Company means that China's history of only relying on imports for cervical cancer vaccines ends.
In mid-to-late April, Wantai announced that the first batch of 93,643 units of Xinkening had obtained the certificate of batch issuance of biological products from the State Food and Drug Administration, and Xinkening officially entered the market.
It is worth mentioning that there are other domestic companies that have also set their sights on the development of cervical cancer vaccines, such as Watson Bio (300142.SZ).
On June 15, Watson Biological issued an announcement stating that the bivalent cervical cancer vaccine independently developed by its holding subsidiary Shanghai Zerun Biotechnology Co., Ltd. submitted a production application to the State Food and Drug Administration and was accepted.
The vaccine also completed Phase III clinical studies in April this year and obtained the "Clinical Trial Report".
Can the research and development of domestic HPV vaccines enter the market, alleviate domestic demand for such vaccines?
"As far as I know, the domestic bivalent HPV vaccine is currently performing well in the market and is relatively popular." Tao Lina said, "The competitiveness of domestic HPV vaccines should not be worse than imported vaccines in the future, and may even be better. Because The domestic medical team understands the needs of the Chinese market better, and is more advantageous in terms of price. In addition, domestic HPV vaccine manufacturers may also cooperate with local governments in the future to reduce the cost of HPV vaccination for local populations, and even provide them for free by the government, while imported vaccines After entering the country, relatively speaking, he is not so flexible."
"The launch of the domestic bivalent cervical cancer vaccine has a'milestone' significance, but if it is purely technically speaking, this domestic vaccine can only be regarded as quite satisfactory and has no special bright spots." Taolina believes that there are more on the market. The crowd is still more enthusiastic about the nine-valent HPV vaccine, and it will take time to increase the supply of this type of vaccine.
(Jiang Yao and Shi Li are both pseudonyms)
Author: Huang Qiong