HBV vaccination coverage among health-care workers.

HBV vaccination coverage among health-care workers De Schryver et al. were rightly concerned by the HBV vaccination coverage among health-care workers (HCWs) in 11 countries of the European Union where it is mandatory. France is among those where no data are available and some information about a very specific situation must be disclosed. On 3 November 2010, the members of parliament voted a E100 000 individual compensation to 20 firefighters for adverse effects (multiple sclerosis) due to hepatitis B vaccination (mandatory too because they actively participate to emergency care). This is sadly in the line of a major pre-publication release campaign of a research conducted with funding from several major national bodies (including AFSSAPS, the French FDA) which stated in 2008 that ‘Engerix B vaccine appears to increase the risk of CNS inflammatory demyelination in childhood’. Accordingly, 30 years after Philippe Maupas’ publication in the Lancet of the first clinical trial of vaccination against hepatitis B in humans, performed at Tours (France), in 2006, in France, the percentage of 1-year-olds immunized with three doses of hepatitis B was 29% (vs. 86% in Germany, a comparable country), lower than in most of the very poor countries in the world. The Institut National de Veille Sanitaire (INVS, the French Center for Diseases Control) has recently (July 2010) reported a slight increase in the percentage of 1-year-olds who are immunized (BEH, 27 July 2010, p. 330). However, the population was selected for its compliance to follow-up consultations and those who only got one shot of the vaccine were considered to be fully immunized. Meanwhile, the National Cancer Institute refuses to present data on the evolution of hepatocellular cancer mortality stating that the data have a too low quality.