Hepatitis A Vaccination

There is already a vaccination thread but I thought I would start a new one because the vaccine for hepatitis A is fully one that is optional and (I believe) not paid for by NHI.

When we took our son went for his last vaccination (he’s two and a half now), the doctor or nurse gave my wife a pamphlet about the hepatitis A vaccination. My wife and I don’t know whether we should do it. It doesn’t seem like he falls under any of the categories listed below of those at risk, but it does seems like a very safe vaccine and I would feel terrible if he got hepatitis A when we could have avoided it easily. Any thoughts?

[quote]Who should be vaccinated

Vaccination against hepatitis A is recommended if you:

are planning to travel to or live in parts of the world where hepatitis A is widespread, particularly if levels of sanitation and food hygiene are expected to be poor
have any type of long-term (chronic) liver disease
have haemophilia (a blood disorder than can affect the ability of blood to clot properly)
are a man who has sex with other men
regularly inject illegal drugs 
work with or near sewage (untreated sewage is often contaminated by hepatitis A)
work in institutions where levels of personal hygiene may be poor, such as a homeless shelter
work with primates (monkeys, apes, baboons, chimps, gorillas) as these can also be infected with hepatitis A

[/quote]

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Hepatitis-A/Pages/Vaccination.aspx

Just got this email from a friend who knows who I am here but apparently desires to remain anonymous so he can go on posting all kinds of weird shit.

[quote]Yeah, go for it. It’s one of the safest vaccines out there. Do the Twinrix, which will also protect against HepB – at least if it’s an option for him at his age.

What GSK did was to bioengineer yeast cells to have certain surface proteins that are the same as what the viruses exhibit. So, these are not weakened-virus or killed-virus vaccines, but rather just yeast with antigens. (I may have the terminology wrong, not a bio dude.)

There are always risks, but frankly it’s nice not to have to worry about hepatitis A or B. You’re old enough to remember news reports about hepatitis outbreaks in the U.S. due to some kitchen worker having HepA and infecting dozens of people who ate at his restaurant some evening; when was the last time you saw one of those? It’s been at least 15-20 years since I remember one.

HepB is pretty endemic here, and is also good to avoid.[/quote]

A long time ago in Australia I and my family received a range of unusual and interesting vaccinations before going to live in Laos as volunteers. The vaccine doctor didn’t vaccinate my sons, aged 5 and 18 months at the time, against Hep A. He said that it’s only a serious disease in adults, and even then it isn’t on a par with Hep B or C, despite its similar name. He said when children contract Hep A they experience very mild or non-existent symptoms and derive better long term immunity from the disease than the vaccine. I want to be clear this is only what I was told two or three decades ago and is in no way medical advice.

I used to work at GSK in Taiwan in Marketing. I remember we would refer to Taiwan as “Liver Island” when we report upwards because hepatitis is endemic here (same in China and Korea). As marasan’s friend noted, Twinrix is a vaccine for Hep A and B (don’t think we had it in the market when I was there - or maybe it was newly launched at that time), but we did have Havrix, which was specifically for HepA

There is a free window for the hepatitis vaccine in NHI I believ.

I would definitely vaccinate, my kid visited TW at 15 months, and his doctor recommended it b/c he may get exposure from hep A from street food, kissing relatives who are infected/ not vaccinated, etc. He said that Hep A can have serious consequences.
That doc might be very cautious though, because he also recommended it for anyone living in Canada, and in Canada hep A vaccine is not routine.