Hepatitis B Vaccines—to Switch or Not to Switch
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
With the recent licensure of a hepatitis B vaccine prepared in yeast by recombinant DNA technology (Recombivax-HB), a new era in vaccine development has emerged. The vaccine it is designed to compete with—Heptavax-B—is also a uniquely formulated product in that it is prepared from the plasma of humans chronically infected with hepatitis B. Several placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind trials have clearly documented that the plasma-derived vaccine is highly effective in preventing hepatitis B in high-risk groups.1-3
Shortly after the licensure of Heptavax-B in 1981 and its general availability in July 1982, the discovery of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) among male homosexuals threatened the success of this product, since some of the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive plasma donors were members of this high-risk group. Intensive epidemiologic, virological, and serological evaluations were launched, which eventually found no evidence for the transmission of AIDS to recipients of the plasma-derived HBsAg vaccine.
