The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday that only 25 percent of teenagers ages 13 to 17 received the cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil.

Gardasil produced by Merck, hit the market in 2006 and was designed for girls and women aged 9-26 to prevent infections with four strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer and most genital warts. The vaccine is administered in a three-dose series.

The CDC report was based on a national survey involving about 3,000 girls nationwide. The findings showed that 25.1 percent of the teen girls in the survey had received at least one dose of Gardasil. The percentage translates in about 2.5 million girls out of 10 million girls who fall within the aforementioned age frame. The percentage is “very good,” according to Lance Rodewald, director of the division of immunization services at the CDC, but “we need to see that rate every year if we are going to meet our goal” of 90 percent immunization rates for all recommended shots.

Gardasil prevents four types of the HPV virus known to be involved in 90 percent of genital warts and 70 percent of cervical cancer. The CDC recommends that girls get the cervical cancer vaccine and that all children get the other two when they are 11 or 12. Most girls of this age are not yet sexually active and will achieve a maximum protection.

Cervical cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in women worldwide, resulting in nearly a half-million diagnoses and 280,000 deaths each year. In 2007, there were an estimated 11,000 new cases of cervical cancer and 3,600 deaths in the US.

The report findings also showed an increase since 2006 in vaccines for tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, and rubella.