The vaccine gives protection against the hepatitis b virus is a major cause of serious liver disease including scarring of the liver (cirrhosis) and liver cancer.

You can get infected with hepatitis B if you have contact with an infected person’s blood or other body fluids. People who are at risk of getting hepatitis B or developing serious complications from it should consider being vaccinated.

Full protection involves having 3 injections of the hepatitis B vaccine at the recommended intervals. 

The hepatitis B vaccine is very safe. Other than some redness and soreness at the site of the injection, side effects are rare. It’s an inactivated (dead) vaccine, so it cannot cause the infection itself.