Hepatitis vaccines

[jericho]

Are you supposed to get tested for hepatitis before receiving a vaccine?

I got the Hep A vaccine a few years ago w/o being tested for Hep A. And I just started the Hep B course, and it was only after the first shot that I started wondering if I should have been tested for Hep B beforehand.

Now I'll have antibodies for Hep A and B in my blood, right? So any antibody test (not sure if that's how they test for hepatitis?) I take will come back positive, right?

At least I got tested for Hep C, which came back negative.

[betsyb1967]

No, no reason to get tested for either before getting the vaccines.

When they suspect you have hepatitis, they do a different test that doesn't reflect prior antibodies from being vaccinated.

http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/B/bFAQ.htm#tests - this is just all on hepb testing but it does have a nice section that goes into the different tests for it and which ones reflect prior infection/immunization against it. Think it will help explain it to you a little better than I can fresh out of bed this morning

betsy
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ASHA Moderator

[jericho]

Thanks! Yes, looks like the virus is in the blood, so there are tests to detect the virus itself.