Hepatitis B: How much do you know?

Are you at risk?

Are you sexually active with multiple partners?
Are you a health care worker such as a nurse, doctor, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, laboratory technician, emergency room attendant, an employee of an institution for the developmentally disabled, or any other position that exposes you to potentially infected blood or body fluids?
Do you work in public safety positions such as fire and rescue or law enforcement?
Are you an immigrant from Asia, Africa, the Amazon Basin in South America, the Pacific Islands, Eastern Europe, or the Middle East?
Are you a Native American or Alaskan Native?
Do you live with someone who has hepatitis B?
Do you practice tattooing or body piercing?
Do you travel internationally to endemic areas?
Do you have hemophilia?
Are you receiving hemodialysis treatments?
Do you use street drugs?
Are you monogamous but have a partner who is at risk for hepatitis B infection?

If you answered yes to any one of these questions, you are at risk of infection with the hepatitis B virus.

What is Hepatitis B?

The hepatitis B virus silently infects the liver and can lead to liver failure, liver cancer and death in many of those who catch it. The virus is found in the blood and body fluids of infected persons and can be spread through sexual contact; the sharing of needles or razors; from mother to infant during birth; and by living in a household with an infected person.

What is America doing about Hepatitis B?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and many public and private health organizations are determined to control and, in time, eliminate hepatitis B from the United States.

How can I protect myself?

There is no treatment for hepatitis B once you have it. However, you can protect yourself from infection by getting vaccinated. Safe, effective hepatitis B vaccines have been available for over a decade. A three-shot series will protect you from this silent, highly infectious killer. Talk with your doctor about the importance of hepatitis B vaccination if you are in one of the risk groups listed. You may also be eligible to receive hepatitis B shots through your local health department.

Facts Everyone Should Know About Hepatitis B

Hepatitis B can be fatal.
Hepatitis B, once caught, has no cure. There is, however, safe and proven prevention in the form of the hepatitis B vaccine.
Hepatitis B is a "silent disease" that infects many adults without making them feel sick. If you do get symptoms, they are like the "flu"; you lose your appetite, feel extremely tired, have stomach cramps, and throw up. If you are more seriously ill, your skin and eyes may turn yellow with jaundice and you may need to stay in the hospital.
Every year, approximately 5,000 Americans die of hepatitis B infection, often after a 10-20 year illness that results from liver damage and sometimes liver cancer.
The hepatitis B virus is found in blood and other body fluids such as semen, vaginal secretions and breast milk. Hepatitis B is very easy to catch. It is 100 times more catchy than the virus that causes AIDS.
Hepatitis B virus infects over 200,000 people in the US every year.
Hepatitis B is a sexually transmitted disease (STD). It is the only STD for which there is a vaccine that will protect you.
Hepatitis B can be spread through sexual contact; by sharing needles or razors; and by tattooing or body piercing with unsterile equipment. But, nearly one-third of adults who become infected do so without knowing how they got it.
Some people who catch hepatitis B carry the virus in their bodies for a long time and may continue to unintentionally infect others for many years.
The hepatitis B vaccine is very safe. It has been used in the United States since 1982 to protect everyone from newborn babies to older adults from catching the virus. Please protect yourself. Get the vaccine.

Produced by the Hepatitis B Action Group, National Coalition for Adult Immunization through an unrestricted educational grant from Merck Vaccine Division.

National Coalition for Adult Immunization
4733 Bethesda Avenue, Suite 750
Bethesda, MD 20814-5228

March 1997