Incubation period
Weeks to months for warts. The cell changes that matter take years, sometimes decades.
When a test becomes reliable
There is no routine blood test. It is found by cervical screening or a dedicated HPV swab test.
Symptoms
- Usually nothing at all — the immune system deals with it quietly
- Low-risk types can cause genital warts: soft growths, sometimes single, sometimes in clusters
- High-risk types cause no symptoms whatsoever while they change cells, which is the entire reason screening exists
Good to know
- There are more than 200 types; about 40 are passed on sexually, and only a handful of those are the ones linked to cancer
- Most infections clear on their own within one to two years
- The vaccine covers the types behind the large majority of cervical cancers, and works best before any exposure
- It is passed on by skin-to-skin contact, so a condom lowers the risk but does not remove it
How it was discovered
Warts were known to be infectious since antiquity, but the link to cancer was dismissed for most of the twentieth century — the accepted culprit was herpes. Harald zur Hausen spent more than a decade arguing otherwise and looking for HPV DNA inside cervical tumours, finding HPV 16 in 1983 and HPV 18 a year later. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2008; the first vaccine had reached the market two years earlier.
Last updated: September 2026
This page is general information, not a diagnosis and not medical advice. Symptoms overlap between infections, and many infections have none at all — only a test can tell. If you think you have been exposed, talk to a doctor.