Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Wednesday announced that the government will provide about $342 million for a program that will offer Merck's human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil at no cost to girls and women ages 12 to 26 living in the country, Bloomberg reports. Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration in June approved Gardasil for girls and women ages nine to 26 and boys ages nine to 15 (Poljak/Daley, Bloomberg, 11/29). According to Merck, the vaccine in clinical trials has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing HPV infection with strains 16 and 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases, in women who do not already have the virus, and about 99% effective in preventing HPV strains 6 and 11, which together with strains 16 and 18 cause about 90% of genital wart cases. Gardasil also protects against vaginal and vulvar cancers, two other gynecological cancers that are linked to HPV, according to a study presented in June at a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Atlanta (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 11/27). Australia's National Immunisation Program aims to vaccinate female students ages 12 to 18 beginning in April 2007 (Packham, Herald Sun, 11/30). Women ages 18 to 26 will be able to receive the vaccination at no cost from their general practitioner for two years beginning in the middle of 2007, Australia's Age reports (Murphy/Stafford, Age, 11/30). According to Bloomberg, the National Immunisation Program plans to target female students ages 12 and 13 to receive Gardasil after a two-year "catch-up period" of vaccinating women as old as 26 (Bloomberg, 11/29). Merck owns the global licensing rights to Gardasil but Australia-based pharmaceutical company CSL Limited will distribute it in Australia (Dow Jones, 11/28). About 270 women in Australia die annually from cervical cancer and about 800 are diagnosed with the disease annually (Age, 11/29).