18 years ago, Mei Yanfang left; 18 years later, the movie "Mei Yanfang" came.
18 years, just like the fanghua of a young girl of a wonderful age.
(Source: Sina Movies)
Speaking of Mui Yanfang, she may have been the most well-known actress in Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s, or even one of them.
Whether in the film world or the music world, her influence is very important, "The Queen of Change", "Daughter of Hong Kong", many praises are added to the body, looking around, there are also all the heavenly kings and queens around. However, her life was short, and in 2003, her life was forever fixed at the age of 40.
(Source: Network)
What took her was cervical cancer, a cancer that was collectively committed to eliminating by 194 countries around the world.
01
The first cancer to be wiped out by the human will
According to data released by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in 2020 alone, the number of deaths due to cancer in the world will reach 9.96 million, with an average of 19 deaths per minute.
Regarding the pathogenesis of cancer, humans are not yet fully understood, however, there is already a cancer that humans are already confident that they can eliminate in the near future.
That's cervical cancer.
On 17 November 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially launched the Global Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer, in which 194 countries around the world have committed to eliminating cervical cancer in accordance with the resolution adopted by the 73rd World Health Assembly.
How?
The strategic goals set by WHO consist of three parts, namely by 2030:
90% HPV vaccination coverage;
Achieve 70% cervical cancer screening coverage;
This makes cervical precancerous lesions and cervical cancer treatment 90% accessible.
To sum up, it is "prevention + early screening + early treatment".
Among them, "early screening and early treatment" is an effective way to improve the cure rate of all cancers, but it cannot eliminate cancer; the reason why cervical cancer can be eliminated is largely due to its more preventable: cervical cancer is currently the only cancer that can clearly reduce the chance of disease by vaccination.
The data shows that in the United States, there are more than 13,000 new cases of cervical cancer every year, and HPV infection is the cause of almost all cervical cancer. In addition, HPV infection also causes about 70%-75% of vaginal cancers and about 30% of vulvar cancers in women, as well as about 85%-90% of cancers and 90% of genital warts of all sexes.
The HPV vaccine is to greatly reduce the cause of these cancers by preventing HPV infection. HPV infection usually occurs after a woman has her first sexual intercourse, so the optimal age for HPV vaccination is before a woman's first sexual act, hence the term "virgin vaccine".
In China, cervical cancer is one of the most common gynecological cancers. According to the global cancer burden data released by IARC, in 2020, the number of new cases of cervical cancer in China will be close to 110,000, accounting for 2.4% of all new cancers.
Although the proportion is not high, the destructive force is extremely large. As of now, the 5-year survival rate of cervical cancer in China is less than 60%, which means that tens of thousands of Chinese women die of cervical cancer every year.
Mei Yanfang, just one of them.
02
More than 70 countries around the world have been included in national immunization programmes, and no China has yet to do so
The elimination of cervical cancer depends on the HPV vaccine, however, the HPV vaccine in China is not optimistic.
The following is the history of the birth of the HPV vaccine and its entry into China:
In 2006, Merck launched the world's first HPV vaccine, Jadatsha, to prevent HPV-6, 11, 16, 18 infections (commonly known as quadrivalent vaccines).
In 2007, the HPV vaccine Hui Yankang, launched by GlaxoSmithKline, was launched in the European Union to prevent HPV-16 and 18 infections (commonly known as bivalent vaccines).
In 2014, Merck launched a new generation of HPV vaccine, which can also prevent HPV-31, 33, 45, 52 and 58 infections (commonly known as nine-valent vaccine) on the basis of the original tetravalent of Gasseda.
In 2016, 10 years after the world's first HPV vaccine was launched, GlaxoSmithKline's bivalent vaccine Hui Yankang was approved in China, and the news of the bivalent vaccine being delisted in the United States was followed. It turned out that the United States began to phase out the bivalent vaccine many years ago, and fully upgraded it to nine-valent. For a time, the news of the approval of the bivalent vaccine in China seemed slightly embarrassing, and it was not officially launched until a year later, first for women aged 9-25, and expanded to 9-45 years old in 2018.
In 2017, Merck's quadrivalent HPV vaccine, Jiadaxiu, was also approved in China, becoming the second HPV vaccine to enter China after Hui Yankang, the bivalent vaccine of GlaxoSmithKline.
On April 29, 2018, the State Drug Administration issued an announcement that the nine-valent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine was conditionally approved for marketing. This "condition" lies in the difference between the age of application and the United States: the age of approval for use of the nine-valent HPV vaccine in the United States is 9-26 years old, and then expanded to 9-45 years old; China is only 16-26 years old.
(Source: State Drug Administration)
On December 31, 2019, the bivalent HPV vaccine Xinkoning of Xiamen Wantai Canghai Biotechnology Co., Ltd. was approved, becoming the first HPV vaccine independently developed in China.
However, on the one hand, due to the shortage of vaccines; on the other hand, there are many parents and women who do not know and do not understand the importance of HPV vaccination, and do not arrange vaccination for themselves or their children; in addition, some women blindly pursue the nine-valent vaccine, and they would rather not fight without the nine-valent vaccine... For various reasons, China's HPV vaccination rate is not high.
In addition, according to the World Health Organization, more than 70 countries around the world have included HPV vaccines in national immunization programmes, but not China.
03
Cervical cancer, the future may be "incurable"
Cervical cancer is also known as "poor people's cancer" because globally, the incidence and death of cervical cancer are clearly polarized. In low- and middle-income countries, cervical cancer rates are almost twice as high-income countries and death rates are three times higher than in high-income countries.
At the same time, HPV vaccination coverage in high-income countries is significantly higher than in low- and middle-income countries. It can be seen that the importance of HPV vaccination.
Another very terrible consequence is: assuming that according to the World Health Organization's plan, the world can reach the goal of initial elimination of cervical cancer by 2030, will pharmaceutical companies invest a lot of money to study the treatment of cervical cancer?
Pharmaceutical companies are always commercial institutions, are profit-seeking, if the cervical cancer patient group will gradually disappear, then the drugs now invested in research, the future will there be a sales market?
More than a month ago, the WeChat public account eight points of Health News pushed an article, the result directly on the hot search.
The article was titled "A Father's Choice: Desperate to Take a Risk, Or Wait for a Child to Die." The article tells the story of Xu Wei, a father with only a high school education, who used self-made chemical drugs to maintain the life of his son with rare diseases, which caused countless netizens to cry.
Why? Because this is not the tragic fate of Xu Wei's family, but the fate of the entire rare disease group. According to the Global Network, Zhang Shuyang, vice president of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, said that there are more than 7,000 known rare diseases in the world, and the number of patients exceeds 300 million, but only 5% of patients have drugs to treat.
It is fully foreseeable that in the future, when cervical cancer becomes a rare disease, those "few people" who have not received HPV vaccine and are unfortunate to be infected with the disease will face "no medicine", and the existing drugs may gradually stop production.
The good news is that during the two sessions held in May 2020, representatives have already proposed that hpv vaccine be included in national immunization programmes. Subsequently, according to the surging news, in August 2020, the first free HPV vaccine in China began to be launched in Zungar Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia.
Not long ago, the news that Jinan City, Shandong Province, was actively promoting the free HPV vaccination for school-age girls.
(Source: The Paper)
At present, these may still be local and spontaneous, but it is the trend to promote HPV vaccination for women of the right age. Xinhua News Agency also reported that China will fully support the Global Strategy for Accelerating the Elimination of Cervical Cancer proposed by the World Health Organization.
Eliminate cervical cancer, will we still be far away?
References:
1. "Domestic HPV vaccine was officially approved, and the market gap of more than 1 billion pieces to be filled" was completed. World Wide Web.2020.01.02
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1654579673242180985&wfr=spider&for=pc
2. Analysis of cervical cancer prevalence and preventive measures in China. Industry Information Network.2021.01.10
https://www.chyxx.com/industry/202101/922083.html