High demand for 4-way HPV vaccine results in mainland supply shortage

Ying Xiaojing, a customer service representative at Shanghai Landseed Hospital in Xuhui district, said the hospital has received 30 reservation requests despite a price hike of the vaccine to about 1,500 yuan per dose.

"Around 30 people have left their information and are waiting for the vaccine," she said. "The first batch will come by this month."

According to Ying, the introduction of the four-way vaccine has only slightly hurt demand for the two-way version, because the vaccines target different age groups.

"We usually recommend Cervarix for people age 9 to 25 and Gardasil for those around 20 to 45," she said.

Unlike Gardasil, availability of Cervarix is guaranteed, and it is priced lower, at 585 yuan per injection, Ying said.

Before the drugs were introduced, people from the mainland had to get vaccinated in foreign countries or in Hong Kong.

Du Yi, 26, received her first two Gardasil injections in the United States when she was studying there. She got her third in Hong Kong on her return to China after graduation.

She considers the introduction of Gardasil to be imperative. Demand for the vaccine is high, and "it was very inconvenient for me to go to Hong Kong just for the vaccine", she said.

"Inoculation at home is also safer, as it allows a person to more easily observe any side effects," Du added.

HPV vaccines have proved effective in the prevention of cervical cancer, which is the second-most common cancer to affect Chinese women between the ages of 15 and 44. There are 130,000 new cases in the country every year, accounting for more than 28 percent of the world total.

Australia - the first country to offer free HPV vaccinations for girls age 12 and 13, and catch-up programs for girls and women under 26 - has seen a sharp decline in HPV infections since the introduction of a national school-based vaccination program in 2007.

Within a decade, the proportion of 18-to 24-year-old women with HPV in the country has fallen from 22.7 percent to 1.5 percent.