Hepatitis B shots for pre-schoolers

Press, 24 February 1988, Page 2

Hepatitis B shots for pre-schoolers

Free hepatitis B vaccinations will be offered to all pre-school children from February 29 in an attempt to reduce the incidence of the disease in New Zealand. The Health Department has organised the immunisation programme and hopes to reach about 250,000 pre-school children throughout New Zealand. The Deputy Medical Officer of Health in Christchurch, Dr Mai Brieseman, said yesterday that about 25,000 children in Christchurch and North Canterbury should be immunised against the disease. Venues throughout Christchurch where the vaccinations would be available were still being arranged and would be announced as soon as possible, he said. The immunisation was voluntary but parents

should realise it was most important, said Dr Brieseman. New Zealand had a very high incidence of hepatitis B with one in six children infected with the disease before leaving school. In areas such as Bay of Plenty one in 10 children had an illness caused by hepatitis B by the time they left school. This was 50 times the rate in Britain. Dr Brieseman said the long-term effects of hepatitis B were serious liver damage and some forms of cancer of the liver. The Government announced a $4.1 million extension to the Health Department hepatitis B immunisation programme in December last year. The extension will cover all new-born babies, all pre-school children, and the household contacts

and sexual partners of carrier mothers. Dr Brieseman said yesterday that children would receive a special low-dose vaccination, which is one fifth of the dose recommended by the vaccine’s manufacturers. Three doses would be given one month apart and a booster does would be given a year later, he said. Using four doses of the low dose for children had been proved to be at least as effective as three fullsize doses, he said. Low doses had been approved by the World Health Organisation and the vaccine’s manufacturers, he said. A report on the hepatitis B vaccination programme says that research on low-dose vaccines began because the vaccine was too expensive to give to all children in full doses.