Tactics in Taiwan Against Hepatitis B Virus

choi

(1) Rachel Chan, Taiwan Leads Global Fight Against Hepatitis. Taiwan Today, July 7, 2013.
http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=206915&CtNode=428

Quote:

"In those days [when he started practicing medicine; he is 72], Taiwan had the highest chronic HBV rate in the world, with 20 percent of the local population carriers compared to 1 percent in the US, according to Liaw.

"Taiwan has since made headway in fighting HBV and related diseases, Liaw said, adding that a milestone was the 1984 implementation of the world’s first large-scale hepatitis B vaccination program, which helped slash the carrier rate in children from over 10 percent to less than 1 percent.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the text.
(b) Yun-fan LIAW/ Chang Gung University Medical College  廖 運範/ 長庚大學醫學院)
(c) his mentor Juei low SUNG  宋 瑞樓
(d) "In 1985, Liaw published a landmark paper in collaboration with a team led by Howard Thomas, emeritus professor of medicine at London’s Imperial College."

Chu CM et al, Natural History of Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection in Taiwan; Studies of hepatitis B virus DNA in serum. Hepatology, 5: 431-434 (1985).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=liaw+thomas+1985

choi

(2) Wu TW et al, Chronic Hepatitis B Infection in Adolescents Who Received Primary Infantile Vaccination. Hepatology, 57: 37-45 (2013)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hep.25988/full

Paragraph 2 of the introduction: “Taiwan has been an endemic area of HBV infection, with an HBV infection rate of 95% and a 15%-20% HBsAg carrier rate in the general population. Vertical transmission is the main cause of persistent HBV infection in Taiwan; fortunately, it can be blocked by passive-active vaccination after birth. To control HBV infection, a hepatitis B (HB) vaccination program was launched in Taiwan in 1984, starting with newborns of highly infectious mothers, and expanded to all newborns in 1986.”  (footnotes omitted)

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest of the paper.
(b) The authors thus recommend a booster vaccination for vulnerable teenagers. See

Wu TW et al, When and for whom should booster hepatitis B vaccination be recommended?  Hepatology, _: _-_ (online publication on May 20, 2013)

But this notion is not proven yet (progress in science is through reproducible evidences). Compare

“Vaccination gives long-term protection from hepatitis B infection, possibly lifelong.”
Hepatitis B VIS; Vaccine Information Statements (VIS). CDC, Feb 2, 2012.
www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/hep-b.html

Naturally not everyone vaccinated is protected. No vaccine is 100% effective.


(3) Wait S and Chen DS, Towards the eradication of hepatitis B in Taiwan. Kaohsiung J Med Sci, 28: 1-9 (2012; review)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22226055