prevention

Last reviewed 03/2022

Immunoprophylaxis may be:

  • passive - hepatitis B immunoglobulin
  • active - hepatitis B vaccine

There has been some concern that variants of hepatitis B virus might prevent their control by vaccination, particularly since these variants develop in a large proportion of chronic carriers. Initial indications however suggest that these viral escape mutants do not alter substantially the effectiveness of vaccination programmes aimed at large populations.