Comparison of hepatitis B and SARS-CoV2 vaccination rates in people who attended Drugs and Addiction Centres

Front Public Health. 2024 Jan 16:11:1258095. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1258095. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Background and aims: Persons with substance use disorder are at increased risk for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Although most of them are attached to social health centers, the vaccination rate in this group is low. In this context, we designed a study to evaluate the prevalence of users of drug addiction centers (DAC) not immunized against hepatitis B and to compare the rate of vaccination against hepatitis B with the rate of immunization against SARS-Cov-2 in 2 years of follow-up.

Design: Retrospective study that included individuals attended at DAC. Patients were screened at baseline (June 2020-January 2021) for HBV immunization. Individuals with HBsAb < 10 IU/mL were recommended to receive hepatitis B vaccine, during follow-up (January 2021-October 2022). At the end of follow-up, the HBV vaccination rate among candidates was determined and compared with the vaccination rate against SARS-Cov-2 in this population in the same period.

Findings: A total of 325 subjects were surveyed and tested. At baseline, the 65% (211/325) of were candidates to initiate vaccination and were advisor to HBV vaccination. During the follow-up 15 individuals received at least one dose of HBV vaccine, supposing a vaccination rate of 7.2%. In the same period, 186 individuals received at least one dose against SARS-Cov-2, representing a vaccination rate of 83%. The comparison between vaccination rates reached statistically significant (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Our study manifests a low rate of immunization against HBV in DAC users, despite a high level of immunization for SARS-Cov-2 during the same period in the same population. Consequently, the lack of immunization against HVB in this population might be related with health policy issue more than to individuals linked to care and awareness. A similar approach for vaccination intended for SARS-CoV2 should be applied in high-risk population to warrant the success of immunization program against other preventable diseases such as HBV.

Keywords: COVID-19 disease; SARS-CoV-2; drugs addiction; hepatitis B virus; prevention; vaccination.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19* / epidemiology
  • COVID-19* / prevention & control
  • Hepatitis B Vaccines
  • Hepatitis B* / epidemiology
  • Hepatitis B* / prevention & control
  • Humans
  • RNA, Viral
  • Retrospective Studies
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Substance-Related Disorders* / epidemiology
  • Vaccination

Substances

  • RNA, Viral
  • Hepatitis B Vaccines

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Neither the authors nor their institutions have at any time received payment or services from a third party for any aspect of the submitted work (data monitoring board, study design, manuscript preparation, statistical analysis, or other aspects). Secretaría General de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación en Salud (PI-0287–2019) for grants for the financing of Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Biomédica y en Ciencias de la Salud en Andalucía; the Ministerio de Sanidad (RD12/0017/0012) integrated into the Plan Nacional de I+D+I and co-financed by the ISCIII-Subdirección General de Evaluación and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) and supported by the CIBER—Consorcio Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red-(CB21/13/00083), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and Unión Europea-NextGenerationEU. DC-M is the recipient of a Río Hortega grant by the Carlos III Health Institute (Instituto de Salud Carlos III-ISCIII; CM22/00176). The funders did not play any role in the design, conclusions or interpretation of the study. AR-J is recipient of a Miguel Servet Research Contract by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Promoción y Universidades of Spain (CP18/00111).