Impact of 'Get it to 100%', a hepatitis B vaccination campaign amongst the health-care workers: A 5-year multimodal interventional study in a large tertiary care public sector teaching hospital, India

Abstract

Background: The World Health Organization recommends administering the hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine at least for high-risk adults including health-care workers (HCWs). Active intervention through hospital-wide vaccination campaign may be necessary to augment the vaccine coverage, instead of merely having a hospital vaccination policy. Materials and Methods: The study was an interventional type, where hepatitis B vaccination campaign 'Get it to 100%' was implemented in a tertiary care hospital for 5 years, through multimodal interventions. Subsequently, the impact of hospital-wide HBV vaccination campaign to improve compliance amongst HCWs was evaluated. Results: HCWs being 'vaccinated' were increased from 45.6% (4398) to 84.2% (8126); not-vaccinated reduced from 54.4% (5253) to 15.8% (1525) and HCWs protected against HBV improved from 2.5% (240) to 50.2% (4843) with significant yearly increase. Doctors (63.9%), followed by nurses (57.7%) were more compliant, while defaulters were observed maximum for other staff (78.8%) and housekeeping staff (64.5%). Discussion: The hospital infection control and prevention unit at our institute was earmarked as designated centre for HBV vaccination campaign, which was instrumental in implementing the various components of the multimodal interventions such as making the resources (vaccines and titre testing) available free-of-cost, mandatory induction vaccination of HCWs at the timing of joining, educational intervention and conducting several vaccination camps such as department-specific on-site camps and student camps (at the time of joining). Conclusions: The authors urge to implementation of a mandatory national policy for HBV immunisation amongst HCWs, which will result in their protection from contracting the virus from occupational exposures.