LEBANON, N.H. (AP) – A researcher at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center believes she has found a vaccine that protects against most kinds of cervical cancer.

For 20 years, Dr. Diane Harper has studied the connection between a common viral infection called human papilloma virus and cervical cancer. Now she believes she may have found an answer and an experimental vaccine that protects against the two strains of HPV that are linked to 70 percent of cervical cancers. Preliminary findings suggest it is 80 percent to 100 percent effective.

If approved by the government, it could be available early next year.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted viral infection in the United States. It is not spread through sex alone, but by skin to skin contact.

“If you have contact with another human being, you are at risk for an HPV infection,” Harper told the Concord Monitor.

Preliminary findings show the vaccine may prevent all diseases associated with HPV, such as abnormal pap smears, anal cancer, vaginal cancer, vulvular cancer, esophageal cancer and even mouth or oral cancers, she said.

“It’s going to take us 20 to 30 years to get the data, but we’re really hopeful this has long-term protective effects,” Harper said.

The vaccine, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, protects those who are immunized for three to five years. It has no side effects, except for pain or redness at the injection site and it could eradicate the disease, said Harper, who noted that she is an independent researcher, not paid by the company.

“It offers such an advantage for women and such a change in health care, one that we will actually see in the next five years,” Harper said. “It will happen. And it’s so rare that the research we do actually becomes national policy. I’m extremely excited about the possibilities.”

The study Harper led ran from 2000 and 2003, with 1,113 women ages 15 to 25 from the United States, Canada and Brazil. In women who received three injections and all the follow-up tests, the vaccine was 100 percent effective. In those who got only one or two injections, the vaccine was 91 percent effective.

Researchers say more than 75 percent of women are infected with HPV at some time. Most cases are short-lived and resolve themselves through the body’s ability to develop immunity. A small percentage progress to cervical cancer, which kills an estimated 280,000 women each year.

Harper is now working on a third phase of the trial – the last step before licensing the drug for general use – involving 15,000 women worldwide.

If approved, it would be recommended for young women between the ages of 10 and 12, Harper said, with booster immunizations later.

Harper and her colleagues are also examining an HPV vaccination for men, who often unknowingly carry the virus.