What should I do if I have been exposed to hepatitis B?
If you know you've been exposed to hepatitis B, contact your doctor immediately. A preventive treatment may reduce your risk of infection if you receive the treatment within 24 hours of exposure to the virus. If you think you have signs or symptoms of hepatitis B, contact your doctor.
What treatments might you recommend for someone diagnosed with hepatitis B?
Antiviral medications. Several antiviral medications — including entecavir (Baraclude), tenofovir (Viread), lamivudine (Epivir), adefovir (Hepsera) and telbivudine (Tyzeka) — can help fight the virus and slow its ability to damage your liver. These drugs are taken by mouth.
What is the best method to protect healthcare workers against hepatitis B?
Barrier precautions: - Wear gloves, aprons, lab coats and other protective clothing as needed. - Wear goggles or face shields to protect against splashing of blood or body fluids into eyes or mouth or onto broken skin or skin rashes.
How can healthcare workers best protect themselves from hepatitis B exposure and contraction of this disease?
Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after any potential exposure to blood. Use condoms with sexual partners. Avoid direct contact with blood and bodily fluids.
What is the new treatment for hepatitis B?
A consortium of leading virologists, immunologists and physicians specialized in treating viral hepatitis, will use a newly designed therapeutic vaccine, TherVacB, as an immunotherapy to cure HBV. TherVacB will be evaluated in a three-year clinical trial starting in 2022 conducted in Europe and in Africa.
When do you start treatment for hepatitis B?
Current guidelines recommend initiating antiviral therapy in HBeAg-positive patients who have ALT levels ≥2 times the upper limit of normal (ULN) and HBV DNA levels ≥20,000 IU/ml.
Should healthcare workers be vaccinated for Hep B?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that all health care workers, emergency personnel, and other individuals who are exposed to blood or bodily fluids on the job should be vaccinated against hepatitis B. The vaccine is given in 3 doses over a 6 month period (0, 1, and 6 months).
Is Hep B vaccine required for healthcare workers?
BCG vaccine is not routinely recommended for non-clinical staff in healthcare settings. Hepatitis B vaccination is recommended for workers who are at risk of injury from blood-contaminated sharp instruments, or of being deliberately injured or bitten by patients.
Can a healthcare worker work with hep B?
Providers, residents, and medical and dental students with active HBV infection (i.e., those who are HBsAg-positive) who do not perform exposure-prone procedures but who practice non- or minimally invasive procedures (Category II, Box) should not be subject to any restrictions of their activities or study.
Which of the following should each staff member do to prevent the spread of hepatitis B and C?
Avoid sharing personal items, such as razors or toothbrushes. Do not share drug needles or other drug equipment (such as straws for snorting drugs) Clean blood spills with a solution containing 1 part household bleach to 9 parts water. Be careful when getting tattoos and body piercings.
Which of the following is the best method of preventing hepatitis B?
The best way to prevent HBV infection is by getting vaccinated. Safe and effective vaccines are available and covered as a preventive service by most health plans. Hepatitis B is transmitted when blood, semen, or another body fluid from a person infected with HBV enters the body of someone who is not infected.
Which are the possible ways that a health care worker may be infected with hepatitis viruses?
HBV is spread in healthcare settings when blood or other body fluid from an infected person enters the body of a person who is not infected. In a healthcare setting, this contact is primarily through contaminated needles, syringes, or other sharp instruments.
Summary
Introduction
Methods
- To update recommendations for the risk management of HBV-infected health-care providers and students, CDC considered data that have become available since the 1991 recommendations were published. Information reviewed was obtained through literature searches both by standard search engines (PubMed) and of other literature reviews used in guidelines developed by other p…
Major Trends in Regard to Providers with HBV Infection
- Health-Care Provider-to-Patient Transmission of HBV
Since publication of the 1991 CDC recommendations (1), CDC has accrued substantial information about HBV-infected health-care providers and students. Many interventions, including the adoption of Standard Precautions (formerly known as universal precautions) and double-glo… - National Trends in Acute Hepatitis B Incidence and Prevalence
Symptomatic acute HBV infections in the United States, as reported through health departments to CDC, have declined approximately 85% from the early 1990s to 2009 (22), following the adoption of universal infant vaccination and catch-up vaccinations for children and adolescents …
Prevention Strategies
- Standard Precautions
Strategies to promote patient safety and to prevent transmission of bloodborne viruses in health-care settings include hepatitis B vaccination of susceptible health-care personnel and the use of primary prevention (i.e., preventing exposures and therefore infection) by strict adherence to the … - Work Practice and Engineering Controls
Parenteral exposures are mainly responsible for HBV transmission in health-care settings. Work practice modifications in the past 20 years have been important in mitigating such exposures. Examples of such modifications include the practice of not resheathing needles, the use of punc…
Technical and Ethical Issues in Developing Recommendations
- Monitoring HBV DNA Level and Hepatitis B e Antigen
Whereas the 1991 recommendations assessed the infectivity of surgeons and others performing invasive procedures based on the presence of HBeAg, documented transmissions of HBV to patients from several HBeAg-negative surgeons (12,15,50) led to examination of correlations be… - Assessing a Safe Level of HBV DNA
Review of information concerning six HBeAg-negative surgeons who had transmitted hepatitis B to patients and whose HBV DNA had been determined (using both Chiron Quantiplex Branched DNA assay and Roche Amplicor HBV DNA Monitor assay) showed the lowest value (at one labor…
Recommendations For Chronically Hbv-Infected Health-Care Providers and Students
- CDC recommends the following measures for the management of hepatitis B virus–infected health-care providers and students:
Acknowledgments
- The following persons were consulted in the drafting of these recommendations: Ronald Bayer, PhD, Columbia University; Kathy Kinlaw, MDiv, Emory University; Bernard Lo, MD, University of California at San Francisco; David K. Henderson, MD, National Institutes of Health Clinical Center; Disability Rights Section, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice; David Thomas, MD, Inf…
References
- CDC. Recommendations for preventing transmission of human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis B virus to patients during exposure-prone invasive procedures. MMWR 1991;40(No. RR-8).
- CDC. Public Health Service inter-agency guidelines for screening donors of blood, plasma, organs, tissues, and semen for evidence. MMWR 1991;40(No. RR-4):1–17.
- CDC. Recommendations for preventing transmission of human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis B virus to patients during exposure-prone invasive procedures. MMWR 1991;40(No. RR-8).
- CDC. Public Health Service inter-agency guidelines for screening donors of blood, plasma, organs, tissues, and semen for evidence. MMWR 1991;40(No. RR-4):1–17.
- CDC. Recommendations for prevention of HIV transmission in health-care settings. MMWR 1987;36(Suppl 2S).
- CDC. Universal precautions for prevention of transmission of human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B virus, and other bloodborne pathogens in health-care settings. MMWR 1988;37:377–88.
