To investigate the association of leprosy with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, as yet unknown for South Brazil, we assessed hepatitis B virus coinfection in 199 South Brazilian leprosy patients (119 lepromatous, 15 tuberculoid, 30 borderline, 12 undetermined and 23 unspecified) and in 681 matched blood donors by screening for the hepatitis B virus markers HBSAg and anti-HBc, using ELISA. Pos...

background: the household transmission of hepatitis b virus (hbv) is a major health problem. high incidence of hbv infection is observed within the household contacts of hbv carriers. we aimed to evaluate serological markers of hepatitis b infection among family members of hbv carriers in arak, central iran. methods: data were collected from the 100 chronic hbv carriers (subjects with positive ...

Background: Direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs) are used increasingly to treat hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Reports were published recently on hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation (HBV-R) in patients with HBV–HCV co-infection. Hepatitis B virus reactivation, defined as an abrupt increase in HBV replication in patients with inactive or resolved HBV infection, may result in clinically sig...

Breast fed infants may be at greater risk of mother to infant hepatitis B virus infection compared with formula fed infants. We studied 85 infants born to 84 hepatitis B surface antigen positive mothers (only two of whom were hepatitis B e positive), and who had received immunisation against hepatitis B virus. Our results indicate that breast feeding does not increase the risk of developing hep...

patients and methods five hundred and sixteen serum samples of the patients undergoing hemodialysis and kidney transplantation from various cities of khuzestan province were collected. anti-hepatitis g e2 antibodies were investigated by elisa method. rnas were extracted from serums and hepatitis g rna was detected by rt-pcr. results of the 516 samples, 38 (7.36%) specimens were positive for ant...

Hepatitis Delta virus (HDV) is a degenerate RNA virus or virusoid and a satellite of Hepatitis B virus (HBV). Three distinct genotypes are described for HDV; genotype I is distributed worldwide but other genotypes appear to be more restricted geographically. In the present study, an RT-nested PCR method was set up to detect delta infection from serum samples. Moreover, the target amplified sequ...

With up to 400 million affected people worldwide, chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is still a major health care problem. During the last decade, several novel therapeutic approaches have been developed and evaluated. In most regions of the world, interferon-α (IFN-α), and nucleos(t)ide analogues are currently approved. Despite major improvements, none of the existing therapies is optim...