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Kids need 'hepatitis B jab'

09/11/2007

All children should be immunised against hepatitis B to prevent most people in the UK from being at risk of the infection, a leading infectious diseases expert claims today.

According to Andrew Pollard from Oxford University, not having universal immunisation means most people are susceptible to infection.

His report in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says that 180,000 people in the UK are chronically infected with hepatitis B virus and 7,700 new cases of chronic infection are detected each year.

Currently a targeted immunisation strategy is in place in the UK to prevent virus transmission from mother to child.

Dr Pollard argues that this strategy needs to be strengthened and says the easiest way would be to add the hepatitis B vaccine to the current UK immunisation schedule in early infancy.

"This would avoid both extra visits to the doctor and more injections for the infant," he writes.

"The addition of one more antigen to the current pentavalent combination vaccine should have little, if any, effect on the cost of the primary immunisation schedule.

"However, although universal immunisation of infants could eventually prevent new cases beyond the neonatal period, the high rate of chronic carriers in migrants to the UK means that a targeted neonatal screening programme is still needed to prevent perinatal transmission for the foreseeable future."