Hepatitis B

Disease Spread of Hepatitis B

Through contact with infected blood, through sex with an infected person, and from mother to child during childbirth.

People at Risk of Hepatitis B

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 of Hepatitis B

The hepatitis B vaccine.

Treatment of Hepatitis B

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.

source: http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/viralhepatitis/index.htm