Royal College of General Practitioners, UK calls for routine Hep B jabs for drug users
Mar 10, 2005 - 4:47:00 PM
"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
By RCGP, UK, [RxPG] 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.
Research has shown that over 20% of injecting drug users in England and Wales have evidence of past or current hepatitis B disease. (Shooting Up: infections among injecting drug users in the United Kingdom 2003: an update October 2004). For more information, visit: www.hpa.org.uk.
The RCGP Substance Misuse Unit has recently published GP Crack and Cocaine guidance. www.rcgp.org.uk/drug/index.asp
The Royal College of General Practitioners is the largest membership organisation in the United Kingdom solely for GPs. It aims to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and to act as the voice of GPs on issues concerned with education; training; research; and clinical standards. Founded in 1952, the RCGP has over 22,100 members who are committed to improving patient care, developing their own skills and promoting general practice as a discipline. www.rcgp.org.uk.
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