Health and economic impact of delaying large-scale HPV vaccination and screening implementation on cervical cancer in China: a modelling study

BACKGROUND: Current uptake of HPV vaccination and screening in China is far below World Health Organization 2030 targets for cervical cancer elimination. We quantified health and economic losses of delaying large-scale HPV vaccination and screening implementation in China. METHODS: We used a previously validated transmission model to project lifetime health benefits, costs, effectiveness, and timeline for cervical cancer elimination of alternative scenarios, including combining HPV vaccination initiated from 2022 to 2030 with screening in different modalities and coverage increase rates, as well as screening alone. All women living or projected to be born in China during 2022–2100 were considered. We employed a societal perspective. FINDINGS: Regardless of vaccine type, immediate large-scale vaccination initiated in 2022 and achieving 70% coverage of HPV-based screening in 2030 (no-delay scenario) would be the least costly and most effective. Compared with the no-delay scenario, delaying vaccination by eight years would result in 434,000–543,000 additional cervical cancer cases, 138,000–178,000 deaths, and $2863–4437 million costs, and delay elimination by 9–10 years. Even with immediate vaccination, the gradual scale-up of LBC-based screening to 70% coverage in 2070 would result in 2,530,000–3,060,000 additional cases, 909,000–1,040,000 deaths, and $5098–5714 million costs compared with no-delay scenario, and could not achieve elimination if domestic 2vHPV or 4vHPV vaccines are used (4.09–4.21 cases per 100,000 woman in 2100). INTERPRETATION: Delaying large-scale HPV vaccination and/or high-performance screening implementation has detrimental consequences for cervical cancer morbidity, mortality, and expenditure. These findings should spur health authorities to expedite large-scale vaccine rollout and improve screening. FUNDING: 10.13039/100000865Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-031449 and INV-003174) and 10.13039/501100003345CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS) (2021-I2M-1-004).