Who is at risk for hepatitis B?
Hepatitis B occurs in about 0.3 percent of the adult U.S. population. High-risk populations include people born in Asia, people with parents born in Asia, those who have had blood transfusions before 1992, health care workers, individuals who have had multiple sexual partners, particularly men who have sex with men, and individuals who were ever IV drug users.
What are the symptoms?
If you are a young individual, you're much less likely to have symptoms than if you're an adult. So there are many children that are infected with hepatitis, either hepatitis A, B or C, and never know it in their youth.
When hepatitis B occurs in an adult, 50 percent or more will have symptoms. When symptoms occur, they're typically gastrointestinal in nature, so it's nausea, upset stomach. There may be vomiting. There's often, but not always, fever. And there's a significant amount of what we call malaise, or a general feeling of being run down and fatigued. So it's a flu-like illness, although it's more severe. When viral hepatitis is particularly severe, then the patient will become jaundiced. And the way one notices that is that the whites of the eye become yellow.
How is hepatitis B spread?
Hepatitis B is spread by unprotected sexual contact with an infected individual or through contact with contaminated needles either through intravenous drugs use or through tattooing or body piercing. Fortunately, our blood supply has now been cleaned of hepatitis because all blood donors are checked for hepatitis.
Hepatitis B can also be acquired when physicians and nurses and other health care workers are accidentally stuck with a needle. Fortunately most health care workers have become vaccinated to eliminate the risk.
