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Australia is on track to become the first country to practically eradicate cervical cancer.

A national school-based vaccination programme has seen a sharp decline in human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, which cause over 99 per cent of cervical cancer cases.

Since 2007, all girls aged 12 or 13 in Australia have been offered a free HPV vaccination. A decade later, the proportion of 18- to 24-year-old women with HPV has fallen from 22.7 to 1.5 per cent.

This means the number of Australian women diagnosed annually with cervical cancer should drop from 3000 to just a few by the year 2050, says study author 聽at the Murdoch Children鈥檚 Research Institute in Melbourne.

Only 53 per cent of women have received the full three doses of the vaccine, but this still provides herd protection, says Garland. 鈥淰accinated women do not acquire HPV from, or infect, unvaccinated men and these men in turn do not transmit the virus to future unvaccinated female partners,鈥� she says.

This herd effect has been further bolstered by the extension of the vaccination program to all boys aged 12 to 13 since 2013.

The original vaccine protected against four HPV strains that cause 70 per cent of cervical cancer. The latest version 鈥� which was rolled out in Australia in January 鈥� protects against nine HPV strains that cause 90 per cent of cases.

Any infections that aren鈥檛 covered will be picked up during routine HPV screening, which has been offered to Australian women since December. If the virus is detected, it can be treated before it causes cancer.