Occult hepatitis B virus infection (OBI) is characterised by the persistence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome in the liver, without any evidence of overt infection: without HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) and HBV DNA detectable in the serum, or fugacious spots of very low levels of viraemia. OBI, a possible phase in the natural history of chronic hepatitis B, is mainly due to the strong suppressio...

BACKGROUND In countries with high rates of chronic HBV, the World Health Organization recommends screening all HIV-infected adults for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) before initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART), and starting HIV-HBV-coinfected patients on regimens containing lamivudine (3TC) or emtricitabine (FTC) plus tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF). Here, we estimated the prevalenc...

Blood donations in England and Wales are collected from healthy donors who do not acknowledge factors associated with an increased risk of bloodborne infections. All donations issued for transfusion since the early 1970s have been tested for hepatitis B surface antigen as a marker of transmissible hepatitis B virus. These measures have resulted in low rates of transmission by transfusion but ha...

in the recent issue of middle east journal of digestive diseases, we read with great interest the article by bahari et al. 1 , “significance of response to hepatitits b vaccine in subjects with isolated antibody to hepatitis b core antigen”. we wanted to specify some important matters related to the article.

Five nonoverlapping antigenic sites (sites I through V) of woodchuck hepatitis virus surface antigen were identified with competitive binding assays involving monoclonal antibodies. Site I contributed to cross-reactions among surface antigens of hepatitis B-like viruses infecting woodchucks, ground squirrels, and humans. At least three distinct sites (sites I, II, and III) are responsible for c...

OBJECTIVE As sub-Saharan Africa is highly endemic for hepatitis B virus (HBV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections, and their co-infection requires special management, we aimed to assess the serological and molecular characteristics of HBV in patients with AIDS. DESIGN This was a cross-sectional, case control study, which enrolled 200 patients with AIDS and 200 HIV-negative contr...

We report a 45-year-old female patient who developed acute hepatic disorder during anti-tumor necrosis factor α therapy for the treatment of Crohn's disease (CD). She was diagnosed as colonic CD and placed on infliximab (IFX). She was negative for hepatitis B surface antigen at the initiation of IFX therapy, but developed acute hepatitis after the 30th administration of IFX 4 years and 1 month ...

The presence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in HBV surface antigen (HBsAg)-negative individuals is defined as occult HBV infection (OBI). OBI is related in some cases to infection with variant viruses (S-escape mutants) undetectable by HBsAg commercial kits. More frequently, however, it is due to infection with wild-type viruses that are strongly suppressed in their replication activity. OBI ma...