Direct and indirect effects of hepatitis B vaccination in four low- and middle-income countries

Population-level vaccination effects of the hepatitis B vaccine were investigated in four low- and middle-income countries with different levels of vertical and horizontal transmission. Indirect vaccination effects constitute a large proportion of overall vaccination effects of the vaccination programmes in all four countries (over 70% by 2030 in all four countries). However, countries with higher levels of vertical transmission benefit less from indirect vaccination effects from the infant hepatitis B vaccine series during the first decades of the vaccination programme, making the birth dose vaccine more important in these countries. Vaccination, even at levels that do not fully control transmission, has a great effect on the development of disease as it also increases the average age of infection, thereby causing a decrease in the number of chronic infections relative to the number of acute infections.