All issues > Volume 25(1); 1982

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1982;25(1):36-40. Published online January 31, 1982.

Antibody to Hepatitis A Antigen in Children and Adolescents in Korea.

Tae Woon Kim¹, Kwang Joo Lee¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, Chung Nam National University College of Medicine, Korea.

Abstract

Antibody to hepatitis A antigen was detected, by radiommuncassay, in sera froom 455 hospitalized children and adolescents without a liver disease or a clinically recognizable hepatitis history. The positive rate of antibody was over 90% in newborn infants and then progressively decreased and reached its lowest level, 9.1%, at age 7-12 months. The high positive rate in newborn infants is suggested to be a result of transplacental passive immunity, which seems to nearly disappear by the age of 7 months. The positive rate gradually increased throughout childhood: 3% at age 4-6 years, 51.1% at 7-9 years, 83.0% at age 13-15 years and 93.1% at age 16-19 years. This finding indicate that hepatitis A had developed in about one half of children until the age of 10 years and in nearly all until the age of 19 years. The prevalence of antibody was independent of sex, socioeconomic status and resident area and did not correlate significantly with serologic evidence of hepatitis B virus infection.

Keywords :Antibody to Hepatitis A Antigen;Hepatitis A;Childhood