How do human papillomavirus (HPV) infections evolve, these highly contagious viruses which can cause genital warts or cause cancer? While a vaccination campaign is due to begin on Wednesday in all private and public colleges in Paris, until April 11, a French study, published Tuesday January 21 in the journal Plos Biologysheds light on the dynamics of these infections which affect nearly 20% of women aged 25, and the vast majority of which disappear spontaneously within two years.
For a period of up to twenty-four months, researchers followed 189 women aged 18 to 25, collecting information every two months. They found that these non-persistent infections – beyond twenty-four months, we speak of chronic infection – are characterized by a plateau in the HPV viral load, which begins approximately two months after infection and lasts for thirteen at twenty months before declining rapidly.
“The majority of HPV infections are halfway between acute infections which rise and fall very quickly, such as flu or Covid, and longer chronic infections”explains Samuel Alizon, research director at the CNRS and director of the ecology and health evolution team in the CIRB unit at the Collège de France, in Paris, who led the study.
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