Hepatitis B Vaccine

The disease

Hepatitis B is a relatively common liver disease. Symptoms include fever, weakness, fatigue, appetite loss, stomach aches, nausea, vomiting, joint pain, yellow discoloration of the skin, and the whites of the eyes.

Infants infected with Hepatitis B typically do not exhibit symptoms. However, about 90% of infants who contract the disease may become chronic carriers. In chronic carriers, the virus continuously replicates in the liver and is released into the bloodstream and body fluids, posing a risk of transmitting the virus to others in their close environment. Moreover, carrying the disease may lead to chronic liver inflammation, which may develop to cirrhosis or liver cancer, and this may lead to the death of 15%-25% of the carriers. There is currently no cure for chronic Hepatitis B, cirrhosis, or liver cancer.

The influence of the vaccine in Israel: the Hepatitis B vaccine is the first vaccine ever developed to target cancer. Before it was determined to give infants the Hepatitis B vaccine in 1992, many babies were infected, primarily near childbirth, from infected mothers or household members. The vaccine helped reduce the number of patients and carriers by approximately 90%.

Vaccine completion: if your child is in school age and has not been given a hepatitis B vaccine, which is included in the birth to 18 years immunization schedule, you can contact the school nurse to schedule the vaccine completion. In addition, the health staff of the school will inform you of complementary vaccines your child needs and help you schedule them with your consent.

More on the immunization schedule

• Swelling, redness, and pain at the injection site: you can apply a clean cloth soaked in lukewarm water to the injection site and avoid massaging the area.
• Fever: you can administer an analgesic to help relieve pain or reduce fever.
• General discomfort: appetite loss, nausea, drowsiness, rash. You can administer an analgesic to help relieve pain or reduce fever.
• Extremely rare phenomena: enlarged lymph nodes, diseases affecting the peripheral and central nervous systems, disorders of platelet production and coagulation, joint inflammation.