- Up to 90 percent of babies infected at birth with hepatitis B become carriers.
- Carriers of hepatitis B can pass it on to others through sexual contact or blood exposure.
- Fifteen to 25 percent of these carriers will ultimately die of liver failure.
- About one-third of chronic hepatitis B infections in the United States start in perinatal and early childhood.
- Hepatitis B causes hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) that kills about 1,000 Americans annually.
