kcannon@phillyBurbs.com

TRENTON - State health and education officials held a news conference yesterday to get the word out about a new law requiring high school and college students to be vaccinated for hepatitis B, a highly contagious and sometimes fatal disease.

Under the new law, high school students in grades nine through 12 will be required to receive vaccinations starting with the 2003-04 school year. The law mandates vaccinations for college students beginning in the 2008-09 school year.

The requirement will protect young people who were not vaccinated prior to entering kindergarten, as has been the law for about three years.

Even after all in-state students are vaccinated, the high school and college mandate will protect those older New Jersey students originally from out of state who were not vaccinated at a younger age, advocates said.

Vaccinating as many children and young adults as possible is key to combating the highly contagious disease, which is spread through contact with blood and other bodily fluids. It is 100 times more infectious than the HIV virus, according to state Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, D-6th of Voorhees, the legislation's sponsor.

Greenwald rolled up his sleeve to receive a vaccination at the Statehouse news conference yesterday. He joined Education Commissioner William Librera and Health Commissioner Clifton Lacy to promote the law.

"The vaccine is safe for infants, it's safe for children, it's safe for adults,'' said Lacy, a medical doctor.

Details as to how the state will implement the law have not yet been worked out. Librera said the state would make sure no one goes without the vaccination for lack of money.

Hepatitis B is spread through unprotected sex, intravenous drug use and direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids that may contain blood. Infected mothers can also pass the disease along to their newborns during childbirth.

Hepatitis attacks the liver and kills 5,000 Americans a year.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 20 to 30 percent of the 1.25 million Americans chronically infected with hepatitis B contracted the disease during childhood.

According to the Hepatitis B Foundation, 400 million people worldwide are chronic carriers of the disease.

The hepatitis B vaccine has been available in this country since 1982.