STD : THE PREVENTION OF HEPATITIS A
Posted by adminThorough washing of the hands after using the restroom and avoiding anal-oral contact with an infected person generally prevent transmission of hepatitis A. In addition, in 1995 a breakthrough in the prevention of hepatitis A became available: a vaccine that offers protection against acquiring the infection. This vaccine is composed of whole hepatitis A virus that has been inactivated and therefore cannot cause infection. It is given in two doses as a shot in the deltoid muscle of the arm, waiting six to twelve months between doses. Adults older than age seventeen are given a higher dose than children two to seventeen years of age.
The first vaccine becomes effective about two weeks after it is given and offers about a 94 percent protection rate against acquiring hepatitis A. The second vaccine provides protection greater than 99 percent and is thought to last more than twenty years. A person who does contract hepatitis A after receiving the vaccine will experience milder symptoms than someone who has not been vaccinated. Children younger than two years of age should not receive the vaccine, nor should pregnant or nursing mothers. Most people tolerate the vaccine well, with allergic reactions rare and mild discomfort where the vaccine was given being the most common side effect.
Elderly people and any person older than forty who grew up in an area presenting a high risk of infection probably should be tested for the presence of immunity before receiving the vaccine. Giving the vaccine to someone who has already had the infection (and thus cleared it, providing lifelong immunity to reinfection) would not be harmful, but it would be unnecessary.
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