Serum Institute’s Cervavac HPV Shot Wins WHO Pre‑qualification

Serum Institute of India’s Cervavac quadrivalent HPV vaccine has secured World Health Organization pre‑qualification, opening the door for United Nations agencies to purchase it.## What Happened The vaccine covers HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18 and is approved for both girls and boys aged 9 to 26 years.## Development Cervavac was created through a partnership that involved India’s Department of Biotechnology, the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, a WHO cancer‑research agency and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This marks the 32nd time the Serum Institute has earned WHO pre‑qualification for one of its products.## Approval and Use India’s drug regulator, the DCGI, has already cleared the shot for domestic use. It is given by intramuscular injection in either a single‑dose 0.5 ml vial or a two‑dose 1.0 ml vial. The immunisation aims to prevent cancers linked to the four HPV strains – anal cancer in boys and young men, and cervical, vulvar, vaginal and anal cancers in girls and young women – as well as genital warts.## Reaction CEO Adar Poonawalla called the WHO endorsement a key step in bolstering the global fight against HPV and expressed pride that an Indian‑developed vaccine reached this milestone.## Context WHO pre‑qualification signals that a vaccine meets international safety and efficacy standards, allowing it to be bought in bulk by UN programmes for wider public‑health campaigns.