Vaccine immunogenicity in injecting drug users.

摘要

Martin Schmidt1 commented on a Review by Stefan Baral and colleagues2 on vaccine immunogenicity in injecting drug users; however, Schmidt's criticism was actually directed at our paper.The first criticism about the lack of seroconversion for antibody to hepatitis B virus core antigen in the vaccinated group of injecting drug users is the only remark with any foundation: only one seroconversion happened and not two as stated. The second patient actually received only two doses, which are thought insufficient for adequate protection. That Schmidt affirms that our article "did not include any mention of suboptimum levels of [hepatitis B virus surface antigen specific antibodies] following hepatitis B vaccination", leads us to think that he did not read the paper carefully. At least half of the discussion is dedicated to this specific problem. Lastly, Schmidt judges that our study is a simple communication of an experience, but we believe that it met the criteria for being a cohort study. Its strength relies on the fact that it remains the only study that has prospectively evaluated hepatitis B vaccination efficacy among injecting drug users.