ABSTRACT
The essential elements to eliminate hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission include preventing perinatal HBV transmission, HBV vaccination of newborn and youth, and screening of at-risk adults with linkage to care for those who may be chronically infected. These components are the premise of our federally funded “END B” program: “Ending the transmission of the HBV from the prenatal period throughout the lifespan.” The purpose of this paper is to describe how we have built on our prior work and report our preliminary results that have been enabled by electronic health system enhancement, as well as describe the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and our response during the implementation of END B. Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) may affect up to 2.4 million persons in the United States, and about 59% of foreign-born persons living with CHB in 2018 emigrated from Asia.1 Because Asian Americans experience the highest prevalence of past or present HBV infection, 10 times greater (21.1% compared with 2.1%) than non-Hispanic whites,2 we chose to focus our CHB prevention efforts on Asian Americans.
Fuente: Clinical Liver Disease
