[Preventive hepatitis B vaccination of professional firefighters as an occupational medicine responsibility of the public health service].

Protective vaccination against hepatitis B was carried out on 91 professional firemen employed in the emergency service of the municipal fire brigade, as part of the medical care offered to the public service bodies and provided for by Federal German legislation. After this vaccination had been carried out, 91% of the firemen concerned were satisfactorily protected by an HBs-antibody titre level of more than 10 E/l. No serious side effects were observed. A questionnaire served to find out to what extent the vaccination had been accepted. The results of the investigation were almost uniformly positive. Attention is drawn to the positive effect and high degree of acceptance of such a vaccination.