Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jan 20;9(2):69.
doi: 10.3390/vaccines9020069.

Evaluation of the Hepatitis B Vaccination Programme in Medical Students in a Dutch University Hospital

Leanne P M van Leeuwen  1   2 , Laura Doornekamp  1   2 , Simone Goeijenbier  1   2 , Wesley de Jong  1   3 , Herbert J de Jager  4 , Eric C M van Gorp  1   2   5   6 , Marco Goeijenbier  1   5
Affiliations

Evaluation of the Hepatitis B Vaccination Programme in Medical Students in a Dutch University Hospital

Leanne P M van Leeuwen et al. Vaccines (Basel). .

Abstract

Healthcare workers (HCW) are at increased risk of contracting hepatitis B virus (HBV) and are, therefore, vaccinated pre-exposure. In this study, the HBV vaccination programme for medical students in a university hospital in the Netherlands was evaluated. In the first part, the effectiveness of the programme, which consisted of a vaccination with Engerix-B® at 0, 1, and 6 months, was retrospectively evaluated over 7 years (2012-2019). In the second part of this study, we followed students (the 2019 cohort) who had previously been vaccinated against HBV vaccination (4-262 months prior to primary presentation) in order to investigate the most efficient strategy to obtain an adequate anti hepatitis B surface antigen titre. In the latter, titre determination was performed directly during primary presentation instead of giving previously vaccinated students a booster vaccination first. The vaccination programme, as evaluated in the retrospective first part of the study, was effective (surpassed the protection limit of 10 IU/L) in 98.8 percent of the students (95% CI (98.4-99.2)). In the second part of our study, we found that 80 percent (95% CI (70-87)) of the students who had previously been vaccinated against HBV were still sufficiently protected and did not require a booster vaccination. With this strategy, the previously vaccinated students needed an average of 1.4 appointments instead of the 2 appointments needed with the former strategy. This knowledge is important and can save time and resources in the process of occupational HBV vaccination of HCW.

Keywords: anti-HBs; healthcare workers; hepatitis B; long-term protection; vaccination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Evaluation of the occupational vaccination of students from May 2012 to November 2019.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Anti-HBs titre (IU/L) as a function of months passed since the last hepatitis B vaccination. Minimum value of anti-HBs titre is ≤1.0 whereas the maximum value is ≥1000. An anti-HBs titre > 10.0 IU/L is considered protective.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Lewis J.D., Enfield K.B., Sifri C.D. Hepatitis B in healthcare workers: Transmission events and guidance for management. World J. Hepatol. 2015;7:488–497. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i3.488. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ryan K.J., Ray C.G., Sherris J.C. Sherris Medical Microbiology. McGraw-Hill Medical; New York, NY, USA: 2010.
    1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control . Monitoring the Responses to Hepatitis B and C Epidemics in EU/EEA Member States, 2019. ECDC; Stockholm, Sweden: 2020.
    1. WHO Hepatitis B. [(accessed on 6 January 2021)]; Available online: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-b.
    1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control . Hepatitis B ECDC Annual Epidemiological Report for 2017. ECDC; Stockholm, Sweden: 2019.

LinkOut - more resources