Rationale for the infant and adolescent vaccination programmes in Italy

Villa, G. Da

doi:10.1016/s0264-410x(99)00459-4

Cited by 26 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…If the program is maintained with the same strictness, it is estimated that by the year 2010 the carrier rate in children in Taiwan will have declined to <0.1% [12,15]. Similar results were reported for the Italian hepatitis B vaccination program [16,17] as well as by a survey of worldwide vaccination programs [18], emphasizing the importance of protecting newborns by vaccination against HBV to eliminate the prime source of chronic carriers.…”

Section: Hepatitis B: Geographic Distributionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Hepatitis B: Where Are We Today?

Eckert¹,

Struff

2006

Transfus Med Hemother

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Hepatitis B still is a major challenge of modern medicine. Here, we summarize the disease, the life cycle of the virus, the emergence of drug-resistant mutant strains and resulting consequences for new drug development. Hepatitis B has a worldwide prevalence of 0.1-20%. It occurs in an acute and a chronic phase. The acute phase is characterized by viral replication, onset of immune response leading to destruction of infected hepatocytes and, in most cases, viral clearance and lifelong immunity. Clinical symptoms are observed in this phase. The chronic phase is characterized by lifelong persistence of the virus, often without clinical symptoms but bearing the risk of hepatic cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. Both phases are distinguished by detection of viral antigens and hepatitis B antibodies in the blood. The hepatitis B virus (HBV) shows several features unique for hepadnaviridae: i) formation of covalently closed-circle DNA (cccDNA) as template for viral DNA replication and synthesis of viral RNAs and ii) a reverse transcription step in the synthesis of new viral DNAs. These features are the prime targets in antiviral drug development. Unfortunately, with the exception of interferon, resistant mutant strains of HBV were found after widespread use of every new drug so far. Therefore, combination therapies aimed at different targets are being discussed so that the selective pressure can no longer be compensated by HBV. This paper is the first part of a trilogy concerning HBV which will also discuss the situation regarding transplantation (second part) and blood transfusion (third part).

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Section: Hepatitis B: Geographic Distributionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Hepatitis B: Where Are We Today?

Eckert¹,

Struff

2006

Transfus Med Hemother

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“…A primary indicator of the positive impact of hepatitis B vaccination is a reduction of the seroprevalence of HBsAg in the vaccinated population [13] . HBsAg carrier rate in the vaccinated groups has decreased by as much as 74% in less than 10 years in Italy, 96% in 7 years in Saudi Arabia, 93% in 15 years in Taiwan, 79% in 10 years in Thailand, and almost 100% in Alaska [14][15][16][17][18] . Apart from the decreasing seroprevalence of HBsAg in vaccinated populations, another indicator is the decline in the number of acute cases of hepatitis B.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Epidemiology of hepatitis B virus infection in Albania

Resuli¹,

Prifti²,

Kraja³

et al. 2009

WJG

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AIM:To assess the prevalence and socio-demographic distribution of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in Albania. METHODS: RESULTS:The HBsAg and anti-HBs prevalence were 9.5% and 28.7%, respectively. The highest HBsAg prevalence was evident in the younger age group, such as in schoolchildren (11.8%) and the military (10.6%). Consequently, the anti-HBs prevalence increased with age, from 21.2% in schoolchildren (mean age: 15.7 years), to 36.3% in pregnant women (mean age: 26.3 years) and 29.7% in voluntary blood donors (mean age: 40.1 years). There were no significant differences between males and females. CONCLUSION:Despite the estimated two-fold reduction of HBsAg prevalence in the general population from about 18%-19% to 9.5%, Albania remains a highly endemic country (i.e. over 8% of HBsAg prevalence rate).

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“…An increasing uptake was reported in Italy after the adoption of measles-mumpsrubella immunization. 38,39 Nevertheless, we could not presume the same trend for seasonal immunization practices, such as influenza immunization.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 94%