Hepatitis B
Disease Spread
Through contact with infected blood, through sex with an infected person, and from mother to child during childbirth.
People at Risk
People who have sex with an infected person, men who have sex with men, injection drug users, children of immigrants from disease-endemic areas, infants born to infected mothers, people who live with an infected person, health care workers, hemodialysis patients, people who received a transfusion of blood or blood products before July 1992 or clotting factors made before 1987, and international travelers.
Prevention
The hepatitis B vaccine.
Treatment
For chronic hepatitis B: drug treatment with alpha interferon, peginterferon, lamivudine, or adefovir dipivoxil.
Acute hepatitis B usually resolves on its own. Very severe cases can be treated with lamivudine.
