​On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of European Immunization Week, ECDC is releasing a new complement of data, tools, blogs and updates to support public health authorities in their work against vaccine preventable diseases.

The authors performed a literature review of all economic evaluations (EEs) of HPV vaccines conducted in EU countries and published in English from January 2007 to June 2010. EEs were classified and compared according to their model, the economic variables used, the modelling techniques and whether or not they had financial backing from vaccine manufacturers.

The findings from Kreimer et al. need to be confirmed by other studies and require longer-term follow-up.

The low immunisation rate reported highlights the difficulties of reaching young adult women.

Similar to other European countries, cervical infection with HPV-16, the HPV type with the strongest oncogenic potential, were most common both overall and among women with cervical disease.

The paper provides and interesting review of the introduction of HPV vaccines in the Nordic countries.

HPV DNA detection in urine is a feasible practice and a useful tool in future research; however, the available studies dealing on the topic appear too diverse in their setup and applied methodology to draw conclusive statements

​Recent evidence on use of HPV vaccines in boys and men and on the efficacy of a two dose schedule may warrant to significant policy changes in the near future.

Today, ECDC publishes an update to its 2008 Guidance on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines in Europe. The update follows the introduction of vaccination programmes in 19 European countries and new evidence from research studies over the past four years.