India’s first indigenously developed vaccine for treating cervical cancer will be launched on Thursday.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) are set to launch India's first indigenously developed Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus vaccine (qHPV) against Cervical Cancer.

Union Minister of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh will launch the vaccine at the India International Centre (IIC) in Delhi. SII CEO Adar Poonawalla will also be present at the event.

This vaccine will be the light in the path of managing cervical cancer which is the fourth most common cancer in women.

According to officials, the qHPV vaccine CERVAVAC has demonstrated robust antibody response that is nearly 1,000 times higher than the baseline against all targeted HPV types and in all dose and age groups.

This form of cancer develops in a woman's cervix. As per the data of the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2018, an estimated 5,70,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide and about 3,11,000 women died from the disease.