Explore the recorded discovery and history of Human papillomaviruses, with source links and stated limits.
WHO describes human papillomavirus as a group of about 200 known viruses that usually cause no concern, spread by intimate skin-to-skin contact and often clearing on their own. CDC states most infections, about 9 out of 10, go away by themselves within 2 years. Persistent infection with high-risk types is the cause of cervical cancer and is associated with several other cancers.
CDC's Pink Book records that a quadrivalent vaccine against four HPV types was licensed in the United States in 2006, a bivalent vaccine in 2009 and a 9-valent vaccine in 2014. The link between cervical cancer and sexual behaviour had been suspected for more than 100 years and was established by epidemiologic studies in the 1960s, with HPV DNA shown in cervical cancer cells in the early 1980s.
Half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer. The Nobel Assembly notes he went against prevailing views and showed that HPV DNA could exist in a non-productive state in tumours.
A 9-valent HPV vaccine was licensed in the United States in 2014, extending coverage to more oncogenic types.
HPV is a group of more than 200 viruses recognised over decades of epidemiological and laboratory work rather than in one first case. No patient zero or country of origin follows from these records.
Source check: 2026-09-19. Educational content; independent scientific review remains pending.