Hepatitis B
Hepatitis B virus causes a life-threatening liver infection that often leads to chronic liver disease and puts people at high risk of death from cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. Hepatitis B virus infection is a major global health problem. Worldwide, an estimated two billion people have been infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV), and more than 350 million have chronic (long-term) liver infections.
A vaccine against hepatitis B has been available since 1982. Hepatitis B vaccine is 95% effective in preventing HBV infection and its chronic consequences, and is the first vaccine against a major human cancer. The vaccine has an outstanding record of safety and effectiveness. Since 1982, over one billion doses of hepatitis B vaccine have been used worldwide. In many countries where 8% to 15% of children used to become chronically infected with HBV, vaccination has reduced the rate of chronic infection to less than 1% among immunized children.
In 2009, 177 countries reported that they had included the hepatitis B vaccine into their national infant immunization programmes (two of these countries reported introducing in part of the country only). This is a major increase compared with 31 countries in 1992, the year that the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to recommend global vaccination against hepatitis B.
WHO position papers
Further information
- Fact sheet
- Hepatitis B management guidelines [pdf 220kb]
- Aide-memoire - Preventing Freeze Damage to Vaccines [414 kb]
- Reports from the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety
- New and under-Utilized Vaccines Implementation - hepatitis B
- Immunization surveillance, assessment and monitoring - hepatitis B
- Regional Office for Africa new vaccines page
- Regional Office for Europe hepatitis page
- Regional Office for the Western Pacific - hepatitis B page
Last updated: 12 April 2011