Latest advice on HPV: Vaccinate males, too

Despite the growing popularity of HPV vaccines among Chinese women since the drugs became available on the Chinese mainland in 2017, males should also be advised to take the vaccine to prevent transmission of the virus, experts said.

HPV infection doesn't happen only to females, although the correlation between the infection and cervical cancer is widely understood by the public, said Harald zur Hausen, winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2008 for his discovery connecting the human papilloma virus to cervical cancer. His work laid the foundation for the development of HPV vaccines.

"Men are also transmitters of HPV. They may not notice they're infected because they don't usually develop the typical lesions, but they're still infectious to their sexual partners," Zur Hausen said in an interview with China Daily on Tuesday during the ongoing World Laureates Forum in Shanghai.