Explore the recorded discovery and history of Hepatitis B virus, with source links and stated limits.
Hepatitis B infects the liver and can be acute or chronic. WHO describes spread through contact with infected blood and body fluids, unsafe injections and sharps exposures, and most commonly from mother to child at birth or in early childhood in high-burden areas. Chronic infection raises the risk of cirrhosis and liver cancer, and a safe vaccine offers close to complete protection.
CDC's Pink Book records that the first recognised cases of serum hepatitis are thought to be those following administration of a smallpox vaccine containing human lymph to shipyard workers in Germany in 1883. Epidemic jaundice had been described by Hippocrates in the 5th century BCE.
Australia antigen, later called hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), was first described in 1965. The Nobel Assembly records that Baruch Blumberg received the 1976 Nobel Prize for this discovery.
The Dane particle, the complete hepatitis B virion, was identified in 1970, and serologic markers followed that clarified the natural history of infection.
A plasma-derived hepatitis B vaccine was licensed in 1981 and replaced in 1986 by recombinant vaccines.
The 1883 German shipyard cases are the first recorded cases of serum hepatitis, not the first human hepatitis B infection; jaundice outbreaks were described long before. No patient zero or country of origin follows from these records.
Source check: 2026-09-19. Educational content; independent scientific review remains pending.