Hepatitis B vaccination among health care workers and students of a medical college.

OBJECTIVE To study the vaccination status against Hepatitis B among health care workers and students of a medical school. MATERIALS AND METHODS It is a descriptive study done at Allama Iqbal Medical College, Lahore. The participants comprised of 206 health care workers of various categories and 327 medical students. The main outcome measure was vaccination status and reasons for non-vaccination. RESULTS Only 49% health care workers and 42.20% medical students were vaccinated. The main reasons for non-vaccination (47.7%) among health care workers was the high cost of vaccination, while the most often cited reason (33.7%) among medical student was the belief that they were not at risk. This belief was also prevalent among nurses (36.4%), laboratory workers (38.6%) and paramedics (33.2%). CONCLUSION In a low-income country like Pakistan the health institutions should bear the cost for vaccinating their staff. Efforts should also be made to impart appropriate health education regarding hepatitis B infection.