Hepatitis B remains one of the most serious threats to global health, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives annually due to cirrhosis and liver cancer. For Russia, which actively participates in international epidemiological projects, it is important to understand how different models of vaccine prevention work. Furthermore, we live in an era of high mobility: Russians travel, study, and work in different countries, while our country receives visitors from all over the world. Under these conditions, knowledge of the actual epidemiological situation abroad is not just an academic interest, but an element of national biosecurity. Serbia, like many Eastern European countries, transitioned to universal immunization of newborns in 2005, creating a unique situation: the coexistence of a vaccine-protected younger generation and an adult population that grew up during an era of high virus circulation. Scientists from St. Petersburg Pasteur Institute, together with colleagues from the Torlak Institute of Virology, Vaccines, and Sera in Serbia, conducted just such a study. They examined over 2,500 Belgrade residents aged 1 to 70 years and older to understand how effectively the national program was containing the spread of the infection and where the main vulnerabilities remained. The results confirmed the success of childhood vaccination. However, the situation among adults was more complex: a significant portion of the population had latent, undiagnosed forms of hepatitis B, and among those vaccinated, a high percentage of people had not yet developed protective immunity or had already lost it. The picture was particularly alarming among older age groups and among educators.
For the first time in Serbia, such a representative sample was used to compare actual laboratory data with people's knowledge of their infection status. This comparison revealed a significant discrepancy—most carriers are unaware they are infected. The study's findings can already serve as a basis for revising approaches to screening and vaccinating the adult population not only in Serbia but also in other countries with similar epidemic histories.
The article "Population immunity to hepatitis B virus and infection marker seroprevalence in Belgrade, Serbia" was published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health. Authors: Anna Yu. Popova, Alesia Yu. Olkhovskaya, Luka Dragačević, Olga A. Petrova, Yulia V. Ostankova, Svetlana A. Egorova, Alexandr N. Schemelev, Marija Petrušić, Ekaterina V. Anufrieva, Anastasiya R. Ivanova, Irina V. Drozd, Ojuna B. Zhimbaeva, Darija K. Tepavcevic, Jelena Protić, Ekaterina M. Danilova, Angelica M. Milichkina, Valeri A. Ivanov, Oleg V. Kotsar, Edward S. Ramsay, Vyacheslav Y. Smolensky, and Areg A. Totolian.
Population immunity to hepatitis B virus and infection marker seroprevalence in Belgrade, Serbia