Twenty years ago, the first dose of a UQ-developed vaccine was given to a teenage girl in Brisbane. That same vaccine is now on track to end cervical cancer in Australia.
August 28, 2026, marks the 20th anniversary of the first dose of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine – now known as Gardasil 9 – which immunises recipients against the virus that is the leading cause of cervical cancer.
The vaccine, developed by Emeritus Professor Ian Frazer AC and the late Dr Jian Zhou, is now offered to all children aged 12-13 years old through the school-based National Immunisation Program.
Worldwide, more than 600 million doses of Gardasil have been administered.
Professor Frazer, who is now retired from UQ and serves on the board of the Translational Research Institute (TRI) Foundation, said ridding Australia of cervical cancer was a result he’d only dreamed of when he started looking into HPV in the 1980s.