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A. Mark Durand, MD, MPH; Henaro Sabino, Jr, MA
Department of Health Services Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Maryville, Tenn

Frank Mahoney, MD, MPH
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, Ga

JAMA. 1996;276(22):1802-1803.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—Dr Chen and colleagues¹ report that a program of routine hepatitis B vaccination has made a large impact on the seroprevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) among a selected group of children attending school and clinics on Taiwan. We performed a similar survey over the same time period on population-based samples of 3- to 4-year-old children on Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. On Saipan, the prevalence of HBsAg among pregnant women is 7.5%, compared with 16% to 18% cited by Chen et al on Taiwan.

In 1984, a hepatitis serosurvey was conducted before the introduction of hepatitis B vaccine. The island of Saipan was divided into numerous sectors of approximately equal population, and all households within randomly chosen sectors were sampled. This sample yielded data on 124 children aged 3 to 4 years. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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