Hepatitis A Vaccine
A team of researchers from upstate New York reported that a single dose of a formalin inactivated hepatitis A vaccine (Vaqta, Merck Sharp & Dohme) is well tolerated and highly protective against the disease.
Investigators from the Kiryas Joel Institute of Medicine studied 1,037 uninfected children aged 2 to 16 in a Hasidic community that had had recurrent outbreaks of the disease. From the seventh week after the injection until the trial ended about four and a half months later, 25 cases of hepatitis A occurred in the placebo group and none in the vaccine group.
The early protection afforded by the vaccine, which is not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration, should benefit people at high risk, the researchers pointed out in The New England Journal of Medicine.
An accompanying editorial recommended that all children be given the vaccine.