Abstract
Background Reported human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination coverage in England is high, particularly in girls offered routine immunisation at age 12 years. Serological surveillance can be used to validate reported coverage and explore variations within it and changes in serological markers over time. Methods Residual serum specimens collected from females aged 15-19 years in 2010-2011 were tested for anti-HPV16 and HPV18 IgG by ELISA. Based on these results, females were classified as follows: seronegative, probable natural infection, probable vaccine-induced seropositivity, or possible natural infection/possible vaccine-induced seropositivity. The proportion of females with vaccine-induced seropositivity was compared to the reported vaccination coverage. Results Of 2146 specimens tested, 1380 (64%) were seropositive for both types HPV16 and HPV18 and 159 (7.4%) positive for only one HPV type. The IgG concentrations were far higher for those positive for both HPV types than those positive for only one HPV type. 1320 (62%) females were considered to have probable vaccine-induced seropositivity. Among vaccine-induced seropositives, antibody concentrations declined with increasing age at vaccination and increasing time since vaccination. Conclusions The proportion of females with vaccine-induced seropositivity was closest to the reported 3- dose coverage in those offered the vaccination at younger ages, with a greater discrepancy in the older females. This suggests either some under-reporting of immunisations of older females and/or that partial vaccination (i.e. one- or two-doses) has provided high antibody responses in 13-17 year olds.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0150107 |
| Journal | PLoS ONE |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2016 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by Public Health England. We thank Georgia Kennedy for performing laboratory analyses. We also thank Simon Beddows for his comments on this paper. We are grateful to GSK (GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals S. A., Rixensart, Belgium) who kindly supplied the HPV-VLPs and transferred the assay, and critical reagents for its performance. All authors were supported by Public Health England.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Mesher et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
