Women in the age bracket 16 to 30 years comprise the largest chunk of those affected by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which also increases the risk of cervical cancer, revealed a report on Tuesday.

According to the study, SRL Analysis on Cervical Cancer, women in age group 16 to 30 years having HPV constitute 14 per cent of the patients in the category, followed by 61 to 85 age group which constitutes 8.39 per cent. HPV is an infection that causes warts in various parts of the body, depending on the strain.

"More than 3,000 women were tested pan-India between 2013 and 2017 for High Risk HPV infection by using the global standard method - Hybrid Capture II. Overall, 8.04 per cent women showed high-risk HPV infection," said the survey. The study reveals that more women from western India (about 10.23 per cent) had high risk HPV infection than those from any other zone, closely followed by women from the South (about 9.78 per cent) zone.

The tests utilized in the screening for cervical cancer are Conventional (Pap) test and Liquid-based Cytology (LBC), Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid (VIA) and HPV testing for high-risk HPV types. In this analysis by SRL test data of HPV by Hybrid Capture 2 were used.

India accounts for nearly one-third of all global cervical cancer deaths, with approximately 1,32,000 new cases being diagnosed and 74,000 deaths occurring annually. "After breast cancer, cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths, accounting for 17 per cent of all cancer mortalities among women between 30 and 69 years, where the median age is 38 years. India ranks highest in the age-standardized incidence of cervical cancer in South Asia at 22 per 100,000 population," said the analysis report.