The State of Health of HPV vaccination programmes in the EU/EEA

Launched by the European Commission in 2021, Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan set the ambitious goal to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health challenge. It aims for 90% human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination coverage among girls and significant increases in vaccination among boys, alongside strengthened screening programmes. 

At the same time, the WHO European Regional ‘Roadmap to Accelerate Cervical Cancer Elimination’ aligned the region with the global 90/70/90 targets to be reached by 2030: 90% of girls fully vaccinated by the age of 15, 70% of women screened with a high-performance test, and 90% of women with cervical disease receiving appropriate treatment. Each country in Europe should meet the 90–70–90 targets by 2030 to be on track to eliminate cervical cancer within the next century. Cervical cancer elimination is defined as an incidence rate below 4/100 000. 

The EU Council Recommendation on vaccine preventable cancers, adopted by the Ministries of Health in the EU in June 2024, and put forward by the European Commission as part of its Europe’s Beat Cancer Plan, is a first-time document recognising the fundamental link between immunisation programmes and the prevention of certain types of cancers, urging EU Member States to expand HPV vaccination to all adolescent boys and girls and improving catch-up vaccination for adolescent and young adults who missed the vaccination by 2030. 

This report monitors the policy objectives set out by the Council Recommendation on vaccine-preventable cancers. The Council Recommendation specifically calls on ECDC to play a key role in monitoring the performance of HPV vaccination programmes in the EU, and to develop an EU vaccination coverage dashboard to closely track Member State progress towards the political goals of achieving a 90% vaccination coverage target for girls in eligible cohorts to accelerate progress towards cervical cancer elimination, and to significantly increase the vaccination of boys.

Taking stock of the vast experience European countries and other countries around the world have in implementing life-saving HPV vaccinations, the main goals of this report are to:

• Describe the performance of HPV vaccination programmes in the EU/EEA;
• Synthetise available evidence to inform policy actions to further strengthen HPV vaccination programmes in
  EU/EEA countries.

This report accompanies the first release of the above-mentioned dashboard. 

While the report is primarily descriptive in nature, the overview of the ‘state of health’ of HPV vaccination programmes in the EU/EEA should also be used to inform policy by vaccination programme managers and officers in national Ministries of Health. The report also provides key public health recommendations and actions on how to
design or strengthen effective HPV vaccination programmes.

Data presented in this report derive from different sources: cancer data from the Global Cancer Observatory, an ECDC developed survey disseminated to ECDC National Focal Points for vaccine-preventable diseases and complemented by a desk review when relevant, vaccination coverage data available through the Immunisation Data Portal (WHO) as well as rapid reviews of literature for selected topics.