<Tr> <Td> Zambia </Td> <Td> 86 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Zimbabwe </Td> <Td> 91 </Td> </Tr> <P> The road to the hepatitis B vaccine began in 1963 when American physician / geneticist Baruch Blumberg discovered what he called the "Australia Antigen" (now called HBsAg) in the serum of an Australian Aboriginal person . In 1968, this protein was found to be part of the virus that causes "serum hepatitis" (hepatitis B) by virologist Alfred Prince . The American microbiologist / vaccinologist Maurice Hilleman at Merck used three treatments (pepsin, urea and formaldehyde) of blood serum together with rigorous filtration to yield a product that could be used as a safe vaccine . Hilleman hypothesized that he could make an HBV vaccine by injecting patients with hepatitis B surface protein . In theory, this would be very safe, as these excess surface proteins lacked infectious viral DNA . The immune system, recognizing the surface proteins as foreign, would manufacture specially shaped antibodies, custom - made to bind to, and destroy, these proteins . Then, in the future, if the patient were infected with HBV, the immune system could promptly deploy protective antibodies, destroying the viruses before they could do any harm . </P> <P> Hilleman collected blood from gay men and intravenous drug users--groups known to be at risk for viral hepatitis . This was in the late 1970s, when HIV was yet unknown to medicine . In addition to the sought - after hepatitis B surface proteins, the blood samples likely contained HIV . Hilleman devised a multistep process to purify this blood so that only the hepatitis B surface proteins remained . Every known virus was killed by this process, and Hilleman was confident that the vaccine was safe . </P>

Who invented the first vaccine for hepatitis b