China’s other big vaccine battle: HPV shots and the extremes women have to go to get them

Despite working in a hospital, surgical nurse Sophie Li found getting protected against the human papillomavirus (HPV) a “difficult victory”.Three years ago, just before hitting the national cut-off age of 26 to receive a wide-spectrum HPV vaccine, Li and a friend had an insider tip-off that the local epidemic prevention station was offering a small batch of vaccines. They raced to the clinic and were the last of just 20 fortunate few who managed to sign up for the vaccine that day. Many others…