Hepatitis B vaccination urged for babies
Tuesday 31 March 2009
The health council is set to recommend that all new babies in the Netherlands be vaccinated against hepatitis B, the Volkskrant reports on Tuesday.
Hepatitis B causes a number of serious liver complications, including liver cancer, the paper says. Some 30 people in the Netherlands die of kidney failure and liver cancer every year, while some 4,000 people are infected with hepatitis B.
The vaccination against hepatitis B has been included in the national vaccination programme since 2003, which means it is already given to at-risk groups. These include children from carriers, children whose parents come from a country where there is a lot of hepatitis B and homosexual men, the Volkskrant states.
© DutchNews.nl
Readers' comments
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Whether or not one agrees with wholesale vaccination per se, this is mercenary scare-mongering at its most transparently ridiculous. That such a TINY number of people affected by Hep B should cause us to overreact to this extent - enough to vaccinate 100% of babies born - would be laughable, if I were so flippant as to think it was a laughing matter.
By K Roberts | March 31, 2009 1:22 PM