Doctors recommend hepatitis shot for kids

ATLANTA – All children between ages 1 and 2 should be vaccinated against the hepatitis A virus, a national vaccine panel recommended Wednesday.

About 25 percent of hepatitis A cases occur in children, but many adults get the disease from infected youngsters, health officials said. The virus, which attacks the liver and can cause fever, diarrhea and jaundice, is sometimes caused by eating food contaminated with feces.

It is rarely fatal. But in 2003, nearly 600 people were sickened by hepatitis and three died in the nation’s largest outbreak. The cause was blamed on contaminated onions served at a Pennsylvania restaurant.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which helps set federal vaccination guidelines, voted unanimously to recommend that a two-dose vaccination be given young children. The panel’s recommendations are routinely adopted by federal health officials and are influential to doctors.

Expanding the vaccination recommendation to all the states could prevent 100,000 cases and 20 deaths in the lifetimes of children vaccinated in one year. The direct costs of the vaccine program, currently at $22 million, would increase to $134 million.