Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

Hepatitis B infection is an unpredictable disease. It may be asymptomatic in up to 50% of adults and 90% of children. It may also incapacitate a person for weeks or months and can lead to complications. Fulminating hepatitis and death may also occur in pregnant women and in infants born to infected mothers. Although most patients recover, up to 10 percent of adults who are infected with the virus may become chronic carriers — making them capable of spreading the disease to others. While anyone can get hepatitis B, infants and children who are infected are more likely than adults to develop the chronic-carrier state of the disease. Chronic carriers usually have no symptoms, but have the greatest potential for developing long-term complications — such as chronic hepatic cirrhosis (a type of inflammation of the liver). In addition, chronic carriers are at risk of contracting liver cancer.