Catching up with the catch-up: HPV vaccination coverage data for Australian women aged 18-26 years from the National HPV Vaccination Program Register.

This report describes human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine coverage data for Australian women 18-26 years of age- as notified to the National Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Program Register. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted of notifications to the Register of HPV vaccine doses delivered as part of the National HPV Vaccination Program- which provided free catch-up vaccination to women 18-26 years of age across Australia between 2007 and 2009. HPV vaccination coverage estimates were calculated by age- state or territory of residence and dose number- using the Australian Bureau of Statistics population estimates as the denominator. As at March 2011- approximately 4.49 million doses had been notified to the Register of females of all ages- and 1.7 million of these were for women aged 18-26 years in 2007. Vaccination coverage was highest for females aged 18 years and lowest in females aged 26 years. For the entire 18-26 years cohort- coverage was estimated at 55.2% for dose 1- 44.8% for dose 2 and 31.7% fo