To prevent contracting HPV, Khanna recommends that college-age students delay sexual intercourse, maintain a low number of sexual partners, get regular pap smears and HPV tests and get vaccinated with HPV vaccine, Gardasil. This vaccine can now protect women from the four types of HPV that cause most cervical cancers and genital warts, the CDC reports.
"Vaccines do not treat HPV," Chesler reminds. "They are designed to block several strains of the virus, but they cannot cure someone of HPV."
In general, HPV is cleared as defined by a negative HPM test, clinicians say.
"The thinking in some research circles is that individuals may actually not be clear. In a sense, the HPV remains latent for a long time," says Khanna. "Latency is still debated."
As for Chesler’s former students, she says, “My students did not ask a lot of questions of me. They may have been a bit surprised to meet someone who gave voice to her STI experiences.”
Guest speakers from the Washington, D.C., Department of Health lectured Chesler’s students on HPV and answered their questions.
“During the semester they found themselves creating a Web site, but also educating their friends during conversations. They continuously noted that few people know much about HPV,” says Chesler, who will join the faculty at Marymount Manhattan College in communication arts in the fall of 2008.”
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