Hepatitis B Vaccine: What You Need to Know [2025]

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Hepatitis B Vaccine: What You Need to Know [2025] [English] ; Vaccine Information Statement: Hepatitis B Vaccine: What You Need to Know [2025]
• Corporate Authors:
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.)
• Description:
  A VIS or Vaccine Information Statement is a document, produced by CDC, that informs vaccine recipients – or their parents or legal representatives – about the benefits and risks of a vaccine they are receiving. All vaccine providers, public or private, are required by the National Vaccine Childhood Injury Act (NCVIA – 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-26) to give the appropriate VIS to the patient (or parent or legal representative) prior to every dose of specific vaccines. The appropriate VIS must be given prior to the vaccination, and must be given prior to each dose of a multi-dose series. It must be given regardless of the age of the recipient: from https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/about-vis/index.html.
  
  VISs have been translated into about 40 languages. These can be found on the website of CDC's partner, https://www.immunize.org/vis/. Not every VIS has been translated into every language.
  
  Why get vaccinated? Hepatitis B vaccine can prevent hepatitis B. Hepatitis B is a liver disease that can cause mild illness lasting a few weeks, or it can lead to a serious, lifelong illness. Acute hepatitis B is a short-term illness that can lead to fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, jaundice (yellow skin or eyes, dark urine, clay-colored bowel movements), and pain in the muscles, joints, and stomach. Chronic hepatitis B is a long-term illness that occurs when the hepatitis B virus remains in a person’s body. Most people who go on to develop chronic hepatitis B do not have symptoms, but it is still very serious and can lead to liver damage (cirrhosis), liver cancer, and death. Chronically infected people can spread hepatitis B virus to others, even if they do not feel or look sick themselves. Hepatitis B is spread when blood, semen, or other body fluid infected with the hepatitis B virus enters the body of a person who is not infected. People can become infected through birth (if a pregnant woman has hepatitis B, her baby can become infected), sharing items such as razors or toothbrushes with an infected person, contact with the blood or open sores of an infected person, sex with an infected partner, sharing needles, syringes, or other drug-injection equipment and exposure to blood from needlesticks or other sharp instruments. Most people who are vaccinated with hepatitis B vaccine are immune for life.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Hepatitis B Hepatitis B, Chronic Hepatitis B, Chronic / Prevention & Control Hepatitis B / Prevention & Control Hepatitis B Vaccines Hepatitis B Vaccines / Adverse Effects Hepatitis B Virus Vaccines
• Keywords:
  Hepatitis Hep B Liver Disease
• Series:
  Vaccine Information Statement
• Subseries:
  Hepatitis B Vaccine
• Publisher:
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (U.S.)
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Fact Sheet ; Patient Education Handout
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Rights:
  Public Domain
• Topic:
  Diseases & Conditions
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  2 pdf pages
• Collection(s):
  Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1a20f734e8e44ad4773ea231087a87daab9b5e0e6c18b6fe298d1e05eb35820117ce81b73e98c97377731e37c47b9f4ef00d3f9cbe61df2b7999131857641010
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/253012/cdc_253012_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 178.02 KB ]