Long-Term Effectiveness of Hepatitis B Vaccination in the Protection of Healthcare Students in Highly Developed Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Hepatitis B virus represents an important global health problem. In highly developed countries, mass vaccination campaigns of newborns in recent decades have drastically reduced the proportion of carriers. However, workers exposed to blood and body fluids, including healthcare students, can be at risk of exposure. In order to assess the proportion of susceptible individuals in the specific population of healthcare students in highly developed countries, a systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to summarize the evidence on the persistence of humoral immune protection induced by the primary cycle of hepatitis B vaccination, as well as the proportion of true non-responders. Forty-six studies were included in the final analysis (52,749 participants). Overall, the seroprotection prevalence at the pre-exposure assessment was equal to 73.8% (95% CI 69.1-78.0); the prevalence of anamnestic response following the administration of a challenge dose was 90.9% (95% CI 87.7-93.3), demonstrating a high proportion of persistence of vaccination-induced immunity. Among those without evidence of anamnestic response, 5.0% (95% CI 2.1-11.5) were non-responders following the completion of a secondary immunization cycle. These findings demonstrate that the majority of healthcare students vaccinated with the complete HBV primary cycle maintain an effective humoral immunity against this pathogen for over two decades.