ECDC On Air, the podcast of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Keeping up to date with European epidemiology.

Welcome to ECDC on air, the podcast of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

My name is Caroline, and I have Helena de Karvalyogomish with me here for this episode of ECDC on air.

Helena is the deputy head of unit scientific evidence and communication,

and she worked as a clinician in

gynecology and obstetrics before joining ECDC, at a time when the HPV vaccine was not yet available.

When we mention cervical cancer, we have to talk about urine papilloma virus, in short, HPV.

HPV is the main cause for cervical cancers in women. Among the several hundred different types of human papilloma viruses, at least 14 are

classified as high risk. And with high risk, we mean that these types are known to cause cancer,

including cervical cancer.

There are different vaccines on the market against HPV and the HPV types covered by the nine-valent HPV vaccine, for example,

alone are responsible for up to 90% of cervical cancers. HPV vaccines have been licensed for use in Europe since 2006,

and by now all EUEA countries have implemented funded programs

to vaccinate girls and boys. Thank you for joining us today, Helena.

Could you give us a brief update on what you did when you worked as a clinician in the field of obstetrics and gynecology?

And what did you do?

And how did it relate to HPV and cervical cancer?

I worked as a clinician already quite some time ago, 25 years ago and longer, in obstetrics and

gynecology. So I was a young doctor at that time and I was doing the regular rotations

in a large university hospital in Germany. So it was the usual department. So we were working

with gynecological patients.

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