Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Women and girls in poor countries should be given new vaccines that prevent cervical cancer because most deaths from the disease occur in the developing world, public health leaders meeting in London said today.

The vaccines, Merck & Co.'s Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Cervarix, represent the first chance to significantly reduce deaths from cervical cancer, experts meeting at the Royal College of Physicians said at a press conference. Expanded screening and treatment has reduced death rates from the cancer in industrialized countries in the last 60 years, as the rate has continued to rise in developing countries.

``We have wonderful tools for preventing cervical cancer now,'' Jacqueline Sherris of Seattle-based public health charity PATH said at the press conference. ``We know what to do. But the challenge is to move forward and develop the will to actually implement those strategies.''

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women and kills 250,000 women a year, the World Health Organization said. About 500,000 cases of the disease are reported every year, 80 percent of them in developing countries, the Geneva-based agency said. The vaccines could have a ``major impact'' on that toll, the WHO said.

Regulatory Approval

``New vaccines against HPV in the developing world could save hundreds of thousands of lives if delivered effectively,'' Howard Zucker, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Technology and Pharmaceuticals, said in an e-mailed statement.

Gardasil has been approved in 50 countries, including the U.S. and European Union, Gregg Sylvester, Merck's senior medical director for adolescent health, said at the press conference. Glaxo said in October that it planned to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for Cervarix in April, four months later than it previously planned.

The vaccines are ``nearly 100 percent effective'' against two human papillomavirus strains which cause 70 percent of cervical cancers, participants in the conference said. They are initially targeted at girls before puberty and may be expanded to boys in the future, the WHO said.

Among the barriers to getting the vaccine to poor women and girls are low levels of awareness, delivery problems in developing countries, cost, regulatory and manufacturing issues and lack of political support, the experts said.

``A good technology, unless it reaches all the women that need it, won't have any impact,'' Sherris said.

Lower Prices

Officials of the companies said they hadn't set prices or agreed to forgo profits from their vaccines in poor countries. Merck will sell Gardasil at ``dramatically lower prices'' in developing countries, Sylvester said.

Glaxo will follow ``tiered pricing'' in which it offers discounts on the vaccine in poor and middle-income countries based on their gross domestic product and the size of their orders, said Deborah Myers, Glaxo's director of external and government affairs and public partnerships.

``One of the elements that come into it is the demand,'' Myers said at the press conference. ``For us, that's going to be a critical factor.''

PATH plans pilot projects with Merck in Vietnam, India and Peru and Glaxo in India and Uganda, Sherris said.

The health experts expect to encounter resistance in some countries from parents who believe that vaccinating their children will encourage them to become sexually active at a young age.

``Even before the vaccine was out, we had groups in the U.S. saying oh, this is going to be something that's going to promote sexual activity in girls,'' Arletty Pinel, chief of the reproduction health branch at the U.N. Population Fund, said at the press conference.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Gerlin in London agerlin@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 12, 2006 11:56 EST