A secondary outbreak of hepatitis B among contacts of drug-abusers in Dublin.

Twenty-seven patients who were attending Cherry Orchard and the Federated Dublin Voluntary Hospitals who presented in the six months from July, 1981, with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive hepatitis and who denied parenteral drug abuse, were studied. Twenty-two male and six female HBsAg positive parenteral drug abusers from the same period of the epidemic were used for serological comparison.