Hepatitis B Vaccine

Hepatitis B Vaccine: Recommendation for First Immunization

We recommend following the ACIP/CDC Hepatitis B guidelines to receive the first shot in the hospital or as soon as possible.

Why this is important is explained well in the link below:

http://www.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/a-look-at-each-vaccine/hepatitis-b-vaccine.html

“About 9,000 of the 18,000 children infected in the first 10 years of life caught the virus from their mother during birth. However, many young children didn’t catch the disease from their mother. They caught it from either another family member or someone else who came in contact with the child. Because hepatitis B can be transmitted by relatively casual contact with items contaminated with blood of an infected person, and because many people who are infected with hepatitis B virus don’t know that they have it, it is virtually impossible to be “careful enough” to avoid this infection.”