From rxpgnews.com

UK
Royal College of General Practitioners, UK calls for routine Hep B jabs for drug users
By RCGP, UK
Mar 10, 2005, 16:47

The new RCGP guidance - Hepatitis B vaccination of drug users in primary care guidance and criteria for audit - states that as some drug users are unlikely to come back after their test, a vaccination should be carried out when a drug user first makes contact with a practice. In the past GPs have tended to wait for hepatitis B test results before giving the first dose of a vaccine.

The guidance recommends that all drugs users should be vaccinated against hepatitis B and that vaccination should be accelerated with a 0, 7 and 21 day schedule being used rather than the conventional six month schedule.

The RCGP also suggests that at risk patients� partners and children are vaccinated. Hepatitis B can be transmitted through non-sexual intimate contact and children face a higher risk of chronic infection than adults.

Dr Clare Gerada, head of the RCGP Substance Misuse Unit, said: "This guidance will help practices to provide better care for patients who are intravenous drug users. Pre-screening can do more harm than good because a drug user may become infected before the next visit or worse still, not return to see his or her GP�.


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