Trends in the seroprevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen in the South Korean population

SummaryBackgroundTrends in hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are important in evaluating the effectiveness of the recommended routine vaccination of infants and adolescents.MethodsThe prevalence of HBV infection was determined in a representative sample of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 1998 (n=9771) and 2009 (n=8304). Participants aged ≥10 years were tested for the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg).ResultsThe overall age-adjusted HBsAg seroprevalence was 4.6% (95% confidence interval (CI) 4.2–5.0%) in 1998 and 3.2% (95% CI 2.9–3.6%) in 2009, which represents a relative decrease of 30.4% between the two survey populations (p