U.S. Hepatitis rates fall to new lows thanks to widespread vaccination, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Friday.

U.S. rates of infection with hepatitis A, B and C viruses have fallen dramatically to historic lows between 1995 and 2005, reducing the threat of liver disease, the USCDC said in a new report entitled "Surveillance for Acute Viral Hepatitis -- United States, 2005."

Moreover, the rates of hepatitis A and B are now at their lowest levels since the federal government began collecting data more than 40 years ago, according to the report,

The rates of all three types of hepatitis have been dropping dramatically since the mid 1990s, said Annemarie Wasley, the report's leading author and a CDC epidemiologist in the Division of Viral Hepatitis.

"Since 1995, there has been an 88 percent decline in hepatitis A and a 79 percent decline in hepatitis B. For hepatitis C, since the early 1990s, it's been a 90 percent decline," she said.

"A lot of the decline in hepatitis A and B is due to the national vaccination strategy since the 1990s," Wasley said.

The statistics were published in this week's issue of the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Source: Xinhua