The hepatitis B virus attacks the liver. Hepatitis B has no cure, and chronic infection can lead to serious consequences such as liver cancer, cirrhosis, and death.
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For more than three decades in the United States, all newborns have been vaccinated against hepatitis B. That may soon change.
An advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to vote Friday to rescind the blanket recommendation. Some committee members argue that it is not necessary to vaccinate all newborns against hepatitis B.
But many pediatricians say the health consequences of lifting the advisory could lead to dire health consequences.
“It would be extremely dangerous” Dr. Andrew Pavia told NPR this year. He is a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Utah and an expert in infectious diseases in children and adults.
What is hepatitis B?
Hepatitis B virus attacks the liver. There is no cure for this disease, and chronic infection can lead to serious consequences such as liver cancer, cirrhosis, and death. And the risks of these outcomes are much higher for people infected in infancy.
“About 25% of children who develop chronic hepatitis B will die from the infection,” says Pavia, who is also a spokesman for the organization. Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Delaying the birth dose by just two months could result in at least 1,400 additional preventable cases of hepatitis B for each year of the revised recommendation. according to new analysis. Delaying vaccinations up to 12 years, as president Trump suggested The analysis found there could be at least 2,700 preventable infections a year this year. The study was published ahead of peer review ahead of a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices this week.
Before widespread vaccination of newborns began in the United States in 1991, about 18,000 children a year were infected before the age of 10. About half were infected through mother-to-child transmission, Pavia said. Vaccination of newborns immediately after birth prevents the spread of the virus.
The other half of the children got infected from somewhere else. Trump said hepatitis B is sexually transmitted, which is one way of transmission, so there is no point in giving the vaccine to a child. But Pavia says the risks to children are everywhere.
“There have been cases of infection in kindergartens. There have also been cases of infection in sports teams. Infections from shared toothbrushes and shared razors have been reported,” he says.
The virus is found in blood, saliva, semen and other body fluids, even tears, and can live on surfaces for up to seven days. A child with a wound who comes into contact with this surface, even after a few days, can become infected, scientists say. Anita Patelpediatrician and pediatric critical care physician in Washington, DC.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about half of people infected with hepatitis B don't know they have the virus, but Patel says they can still unwittingly pass on the virus.
“If you have a cut, that blood could potentially get on the baby,” Patel says. “And if that baby has any kind of break in the skin—and frankly, babies do—they could become infected with hepatitis B,” Patel says.
Dr. Su Wang says she suspects she contracted hepatitis B as an infant from her grandparents. She says they most likely became infected while working as health care workers in Taiwan. Before the epidemic began in Taiwan, the incidence of hepatitis B among adults was very high. successful national vaccination Program of the 1980s.
“When I was born, they came to help, like many grandparents do, and lived with us,” Wang says. “They became the primary caregivers within the first month of life. Therefore, it is likely that this is how I contracted hepatitis B.”
Wang currently works as an internist and researcher specializing in hepatitis at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey.
She says it's important to get vaccinated at birth. Since newborn vaccinations became routine in the United States, the incidence among people 19 years of age and younger has fallen by 99%.
“When we started making it universal for all children, you saw this complete protection that protected a whole generation of children,” Wang says.
