Hepatitis B Vaccine Program Reduces Incidence By 52%

Hepatitis B Vaccine Program Reduces Incidence By 52%

The vaccination program in Catalonia has resulted in a 52% reduction in hepatitis B incidence. In addition, the authors emphasize the large number of new infections prevented.

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The vaccination program in Catalonia has resulted in a 52% reduction in hepatitis B incidence. This is reported by a group of Spanish scientists who published their research in the journal Vaccine.

Hepatitis B is a global health threat. The disease currently cannot be cured, its chronic course can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma).

The authors analyzed the effectiveness and impact of a vaccination program that began in Catalonia 21 years ago. In the study, they compared how often vaccinated and unvaccinated children got hepatitis B.

The incidence of hepatitis B in Catalonia decreased from 2.5 cases per 100,000 in 1991 to 1.2 cases per 100,000 in 2014, at the end of the program. Scientists took information from the database of the Ministry of Health, in which all registered cases of the disease were recorded.

“Before that, only people from risk groups working in healthcare, hemodialysis patients, patients with hemophilia were vaccinated. But this type of vaccination was insufficient to reduce the incidence,”the authors write.

By 2014, the incidence of hepatitis B in the group of vaccinated people was 0.03 per 10,000, and in unvaccinated people - 4.1 per 100,000. According to scientists, the effectiveness of the vaccination program for children was 99.3%, and the proportion of new cases of the disease were prevented - 64, 56%. According to the authors, such results indicate that vaccination was beneficial not only for the vaccinated themselves, but also for the whole society.