India has administered more than 80 lakh doses of the HPV vaccine since launching its first nationwide cervical cancer vaccination drive in February 2026, according to figures released by the government this week, marking a significant milestone in the country’s push to prevent a disease that claims tens of thousands of Indian women’s lives every year.
The national programme provides a free, voluntary single dose of the HPV vaccine to 14-year-old girls at government health facilities, subject to parental consent. Officials estimate around 1.2 crore girls make up the annual cohort of 14-year-olds eligible under the scheme, meaning the drive has now reached roughly two-thirds of its target group for the year.
India’s HPV Vaccination Drive: A Quick Recap
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the nationwide HPV Vaccination Programme on February 28, 2026, from Ajmer, Rajasthan, with states and union territories holding simultaneous launch events the same day. The programme runs under India’s Universal Immunisation Programme and uses a single dose of a quadrivalent HPV vaccine that protects against HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18, the strains responsible for the large majority of cervical cancer cases and genital warts.
Vaccination is being delivered through Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, Community Health Centres, sub-district and district hospitals, and government medical colleges. The first three months ran in “mission mode,” with eligible girls able to walk in on any working day; the programme has since folded into India’s routine immunisation schedule. The vaccine is procured through a transparent mechanism in partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to help ensure consistent supply and quality.
Why HPV Vaccination Matters for India’s Cervical Cancer Burden
The scale of India’s cervical cancer problem is why this rollout has drawn global attention. India accounts for roughly a quarter of the world’s cervical cancer deaths and is home to about one in five of the world’s cervical cancer patients, ranking fourth globally in cervical cancer-related illness. The country records nearly 80,000 new cases and more than 40,000 deaths from the disease each year, making it the second most common cancer among Indian women after breast cancer.
Almost all cervical cancer cases trace back to persistent infection with high-risk HPV strains, primarily types 16 and 18, which together account for more than 80 percent of cases in India. That makes cervical cancer one of the very few cancers that is largely preventable through vaccination, provided it is administered before a girl becomes sexually active. HPV vaccines are also among the most extensively studied vaccines in use globally, with more than 500 million doses given worldwide since 2006, and have shown 93 to 100 percent effectiveness against the HPV types they target, according to the Press Information Bureau of India.
State-Wise Progress: Who’s Leading the Rollout
Coverage has varied significantly by state. Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Mizoram have each reported reaching 100 percent of their identified target cohorts, while Uttar Pradesh alone has administered more than 22 lakh doses, the highest of any state. Earlier progress reports also flagged strong early uptake in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha.
Much of that reach has depended on district-level health teams and community mobilisation efforts to bring the vaccine to girls in rural, urban, and geographically difficult areas alike, a logistical challenge not unlike the one facing broader efforts to expand primary healthcare access across India, where reaching underserved communities consistently remains one of the hardest parts of scaling any health programme nationally.
A Single Dose, and a Single-Shot Global Strategy
India’s decision to use a single-dose schedule follows recommendations from the World Health Organization and India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, based on evidence that a single dose offers protection comparable to multi-dose regimens for girls aged 9 to 20. More than 90 countries have now adopted single-dose HPV schedules, a shift that has made vaccination programmes more affordable and logistically simpler to run at scale, an important factor for a country vaccinating well over a crore girls every year.
With this rollout, India has joined more than 160 countries that have added HPV vaccination to their national immunisation schedules, part of a global push toward the World Health Organization’s 90-70-90 targets for 2030: vaccinating 90 percent of girls by age 15, screening 70 percent of women, and treating 90 percent of women identified with cervical disease.
What Comes Next
Vaccination is only one part of eliminating cervical cancer as a public health problem. The national programme currently targets only 14-year-old girls, meaning older adolescents, adult women, and women already sexually active fall outside its scope and would need to access HPV vaccines through private healthcare providers if they choose to be vaccinated. Screening and early detection remain equally critical for women outside the vaccine’s target age group, reinforcing why preventive, technology-enabled diagnostics are increasingly central to how healthcare providers are approaching early risk detection more broadly across India’s health system.
For now, health officials say the 80-lakh-dose milestone reflects growing parental and community acceptance of the vaccine, a notable shift given HPV vaccination’s more contested history in India. Authorities expect vaccination numbers to climb further as the programme continues through the rest of the academic year, with the long-term goal of making cervical cancer a rare diagnosis in India rather than one of its most common cancers among women.