Hepatitis B, Perinatal Virus Infection 1995 Case Definition

NOTE: A surveillance case definition is a set of uniform criteria used to define a disease for public health surveillance. Surveillance case definitions enable public health officials to classify and count cases consistently across reporting jurisdictions. Surveillance case definitions are not intended to be used by healthcare providers for making a clinical diagnosis or determining how to meet an individual patient’s health needs.

Clinical Description

Perinatal hepatitis B in the newborn may range from asymptomatic to fulminant hepatitis.

Laboratory Criteria For Diagnosis

Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive

Case Classification

Confirmed

HBsAg positivity in any infant aged >1-24 months who was born in the United States or in U.S. territories to an HBsAg-positive mother

Comments

Infants born to HBsAg-positive mothers should receive hepatitis B immune globulin (HBIG) and the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine within 12 hours of birth, followed by the second and third doses of vaccine at 1 and 6 months of age, respectively. Post-vaccination testing for HBsAg and anti-HBs (antibody to HBsAg) is recommended from 3 to 6 months following completion of the vaccine series. If HBIG and the initial dose of vaccine are delayed for >1 month after birth, testing for HBsAg may determine if the infant is already infected.

The 1995 case definition appearing on this page was re-published incorrectly in the 1997 MMWR Recommendations and Reports titled Case Definitions for Infectious Conditions Under Public Health Surveillance.¹ Thus, the 1995 and the 1997 versions of this case definition are not identical, and the 1995 version is the correct one.

References

CDC. (1997). Case Definitions for Infectious Conditions Under Public Health Surveillance. MMWR, 46(RR-10), 1-55. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00047449.htm

Related Case Definition(s)

Hepatitis B, Perinatal Infection | 2017 Case Definition

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Last Reviewed: April 16, 2021

Source: Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology