Lawmaker wants all babies vaccinated vs hepatitis B

Taguig-Pateros Rep. Maria Laarni Cayetano has filed a bill in the House of Representatives seeking to make it mandatory for hospitals to immunize newborn infants against the hepatitis B virus.

“Hepatitis B virus infection is the main cause of chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis, and is likewise said to be the cause of hepatocellular carcinoma or cancer of the liver,” Cayetano said.

The neophyte lawmaker said she wants her House Bill 2785 to be passed into law as soon as possible because hepatitis B is endemic in the country and affects eight million Filipinos, about 10 percent of the population.

According to her, this virus “can be transmitted not only from contaminated blood but also from an infected pregnant mother to her newborn.”

“The probability of the latter is as high as 20 to 30 percent and most carriers of Hepatitis B are ignorant of their condition because symptoms are not manifested,” Cayetano said.

The best opportunity to prevent unrecognized pre-natal transmission of the virus is through routine hepatitis B vaccination of all infants within 12 hours of birth.

“This was recommended by the World Health Organization from a study they have conducted,” Cayetano added. “Thus the best protection that may be given to a child is still the early prevention of the disease.”Her advocacy for mandatory immunization against hepatitis B virus was prompted by the deaths of her grandmother and father-in-law, the late senator Rene Cayetano.Cayetano’s grandmother succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver while her father-in-law died of liver cancer, diseases which could have been prevented through immunization. – Delon Porcalla