Background: The burden of hepatitis B is enormous and remains an important public health issue in Ghana despite the availability of an effective vaccine and treatments. It is widely documented that the younger the age of infection with HBV, the higher the risk of developing chronic hepatitis from HBV with long term complications such as liver cirrhosis cancer and or failure. The WHO in 2020, based on data from epidemiological studies and modelling has highlighted the need for additional efforts at reaching the 0.1% HBsAg prevalence in children by 2030. The above notwithstanding, for HBV exposed infants it is highly recommended that they are given the required protection from HBV if the global target will be achieved. This study therefore seeks to identify factors influencing the vaccination of high-risk babies for hepatitis B infection in the Birim Central Municipality of the Eastern region of Ghana.

Method: A cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted among mothers who delivered between 2020 and 2021 in some selected health facilities in Birim Central Municipality.  For each of the facility sampled, maternal or antenatal records of the women were retrieved to identify women who were tested positive with HB virus. Purposive sampling method was applied. Women who were positive and delivered within the study cohort formed part of the study population. Regression analysis was conducted using STATA version 17.0 and the results of various analysis was done at 95% confidence interval.

Results: The mean age of the mothers was 28.8 years ± 6.2 SD. Also, the mean age of the children was 7.8 months ± 3.9SD with observed minimum and maximum ages as 1 and 24 months respectively. The prevalence of HBV vaccination among HBV-exposed infants was 67.2%.  The prevalence of HBV vaccination was influenced by employment status of mothers, monthly income of the mothers, knowledge levels of the mothers, gravidity, perception about the cost of the vaccine and the ability of the mothers to afford the vaccine.

Conclusion: The risk of HBV infection among HBV-exposed infants is high and therefore an urgent action to curtail it should be implemented. The introduction of the HBV vaccine at birth as first dose is critical which require government policy to include it in the routine immunization schedule to be administer at free cost.