HBV vaccine policy shift may raise infections - Takeaways - MDSpire
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HBV vaccine policy shift may raise infections

A modeling study projects 83% more childhood chronic hepatitis B infections and 1.8 million susceptible young adults under a shared decision-making vaccination strategy.

  • By

  • Andrea Surnit

  • October 19, 2026

  • 4 min

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  • 1

    A Markov model projected HBV outcomes through age 20 years in a hypothetical cohort of 3.6 million US-born infants under 3 vaccination strategies.

  • 2

    Universal birth-dose vaccination was projected to result in 255 chronic HBV infections, compared with 303 with vaccination deferred to age 2 months and 467 with shared decision-making.

  • 3

    At age 20 years, an estimated 232,000 children would remain susceptible after universal birth-dose vaccination, compared with 474,000 after deferred vaccination and 1.8 million with shared decision-ma

  • 4

    In a higher-risk scenario, projected chronic infections rose to 1,700 with deferred vaccination and 2,192 with shared decision-making, versus 255 with universal birth-dose vaccination.

  • 5

    Across 1,000 probabilistic sensitivity simulations, universal birth-dose vaccination consistently produced fewer projected chronic infections than the 2 alternatives.

Original Source(s)

HBV vaccine policy shift may raise infections

  • by Andrea Surnit

  • October 19, 2026

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