The worldwide impact of vaccination on the control and protection of viral hepatitis B

Clarification to Long-term anti-HBs antibody persistence and immune memory in children and adolescents who received routine childhood hepatitis B vaccination. Hum Vaccin Immunother 2012; 8:813-8

“…5,[11][12][13] The key finding from the present long-term followup studies was that three doses of a pediatric HBV vaccine formulation administered in routine setting before 18 mo of age induced persistence of protective levels of immune response in 83.3% of subjects up to 5 y into early childhood and in 78.3% of subjects up to 10 y into adolescence. These observations have n = Number of subjects with available results; cI, confidence Interval; GMcs, geometric mean concentrations calculated on all subjects; *pre-challenge data not available for two subjects for whom data was available at the post-challenge time point.…”

Sero-epidemiology of hepatitis B markers in the population of Tuscany, Central Italy, 20 years after the implementation of universal vaccination

“…Moreover, 20 years after the implementation of hepatitis B vaccination in Italy, a generation of children and young adults (involving 30 age-cohorts) is emerging with practically no markers of HBV infection. [14][15][16][17] Particularly, the decrease of acute hepatitis B cases was evident in some previously hyper-endemic areas of Southern Italy: for example in Afragola, located in Campania Region, the rate cohorts. Also in Tuscany, the introduction of universal hepatitis B vaccination has resulted in a relevant decrease in incidence of hepatitis B cases, especially in the age group 15-24 years.…”

Economic analysis of the first 20 years of universal hepatitis B vaccination program in Italy

“…1 The adoption of such vaccination programs led to a substantial decrease in disease burden, HBsAg carrier rates and hepatitis B-related morbidity and mortality in the world. 2,3 In 1991, Italy was the first industrialized country to introduce a program of routine vaccination against HBV with immunization Italy was one of the first countries in the world to introduce a routine vaccination program against HBV for newborns and 12-y-old children. From a clinical point of view, such strategy was clearly successful.…”