Hepatitis B Essay

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Hepatitis B is a liver infection that develops after an individual is exposed to the Hepatitis B virus (HBV). Transmission occurs when an individual is exposed, through blood and body fluids, to the HBV allowing the virus entry into the body. This can occur in a variety of ways such as sexual contact, from mother to baby, shared needles and even shared toothbrushes. We will examine the historical surrounding of hepatitis B, the prevalence in today’s world, epidemiological principles, and nursing practice implications for the virus.
The discovery of the hepatitis B virus is a fairly recent finding. This does not indicate that hepatitis was not in existence though. The Hippocrates of the 5th century describe “epidemic jaundice” and jaundice …show more content…

The WHO (2017) describe the risk of developing chronic infections depends on the age of the individual at infection. Of those at risk, the most likely to develop chronic infections include 80-90% of infants infected before age one and 30-50% of children infected before age six (World Health Organization, 2017). In healthy adults, the risk greatly decreases. Chronically infected adults equate to only 5% and of that, only 20-30% of infected adults will develop liver cancer or cirrhosis. The morbidity is estimated at two billion people worldwide are infected with hepatitis B virus (WHO, 2017). WHO (2017) tallied mortality from HBV to total 887,000 in 2015 alone from the complications associated with the virus. In the United States alone, morbidity is estimated at 38,000 new individuals are infected each year with a total of infected between 800,000-1.4 million (Maurer & Smith, 2013, p. 97). The incidence rate for acute hepatitis B in 2012 in the United States was 1.1 cases per 100,000 population with a mortality rate of 0.02 per 100,000 (CDC, 2013). The CDC (2013) also found higher mortality rates are among persons over 75 years of age, non-white, and males for hepatitis

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