Kuwait Recommendations on Vaccine Use in People with Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases

Figure 1

Recommendations for HBV screening and prophylaxis in patients to be administered with bDMARDs, tsDMARDs, or >7.5 mg/day prednisolone [29]. ¹Treatment period is up until the patient becomes HBsAg negative in patients with chronic hepatitis B (liver disease), and antiviral treatment should continue 6–12 months after immunosuppressive and/or bDMARD treatment is completed in patients without liver disease (12 months for rituximab). ²If rituximab is to be administered, antiviral prophylaxis should be given, even if patients are negative for HBV DNA (−). ³HBV DNA is repeated once in 1–6 months (3 months on average). Figure reproduced with permission from the European Journal of Rheumatology.