C4 brings together Australia’s leaders in cervical cancer control, in both HPV vaccination and cervical screening, with researchers from Cancer Council NSW, The Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer, Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney, and the University of Melbourne. The prior work of C4 investigators has underpinned Australia’s major innovations in public health in terms of the successful delivery of HPV vaccination in girls and boys and the implementation of an HPV-based cervical screening program.
In May 2018 the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros, announced a global call to action for cervical cancer elimination. This has galvanised researchers, civil society and aid agencies into action towards global scale-up of HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening activities in low and middle income countries.
Australia is on track to be the first country in the world to achieve cervical cancer elimination. Australia was the first country in the world to introduce a national HPV vaccination program for young girls, and it is now one of the only countries that has extended vaccination to young boys. In 2017, Australia was the first country in the world to introduce a truly integrated approach to HPV prevention with an HPV based cervical cancer screening program that directly tests for the presences of HPV vaccine-included types.
Within C4 we run Australia’s largest clinical trial, Compass, which is providing world-first evidence on the interaction between HPV vaccination and screening. C4 investigators led the scientific agenda for the world’s largest meeting in HPV, the International Papillomavirus Conference 2018 (IPVC and AOGIN 2018), which took place at the Sydney International Convention Centre from October 2nd – 6th 2018. This conference will brought together the world’s researchers, policy makers and aid agencies working towards cervical cancer elimination.
The Centre for Research Excellence in Cervical Cancer Control (C4) is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia’s leading research funding body (grant number 1135172, 2017-2021).