BACKGROUND Patients on chronic dialysis present a high prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection. Despite infection-control practices, surveillance of serological markers, and hepatitis B vaccination, there are still outbreaks of the disease in dialysis centers. OBJECTIVE This study aims to assess the serologic and vaccination status for hepatitis B in hemodialysis patients. METHODS This cr...

The objective of this study was to determine the frequency and load of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in anti-HBc-positive first-time blood donors; it was designed to contribute to determining whether anti-HBc screening of blood donations might reduce the residual risk of posttransfusion HBV infection. A total of 14 251 first-time blood donors were tested for anti-HBc using a microparticle enzyme ...

Aim: is to investigate if past exposure to HBV in chronic HCV infection promotes the progression of liver disease and influences Interferon (INF) response or not. Methods: 185 patients with chronic HCV were recruited and randomized into 2 groups, group I was treated with PEG-IFN alfa-2b plus ribavirin and group II with 3 MU/TIW IFN alfa-2b plus ribavirin. All patients had HBsAg negative & patie...

Repeated administration of an intravenous immunoglobulin containing antibody to hepatitis B e antigen (anti-HBe) and antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc) but free of antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs) before and after the inoculation of 10(4.9) 50% chimpanzee infective doses of hepatitis B virus (HBV) markedly prolonged the incubation period of HBV in experimentally i...

Background and Aim: Occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is an incompletely understood condition. There no data about occult HBV in sero-discordant couples. We attempted to find out the prevalence of OBI this cohort formulate guidelines for vaccination. Methods: 40 couples were enrolled. DNA (quantitative), Anti HBc HBs titre (quantitative) done. was defined as positivity without detectable...

Sera from two blood donors, one of whom was implicated in a case of post-transfusion hepatitis B, were found to be positive for anti-HBc and negative for HBsAg by conventional radioimmunoassay and were retested for HBsAg after concentration (pepsin digestion and polyethylene glycol precipitation). The presence of occult HBsAg was confirmed in both. These observations have implications for blood...

Sera from two blood donors, one of whom was implicated in a case of post-transfusion hepatitis B, were found to be positive for anti-HBc and negative for HBsAg by conventional radioimmunoassay and were retested for HBsAg after concentration (pepsin digestion and polyethylene glycol precipitation). The presence of occult HBsAg was confirmed in both. These observations have implications for blood...

BACKGROUND Sub-Saharan Africa has a high prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections. Health care workers (HCWs) are at high risk of contracting HBV infection through their occupation. Vaccination of HCWs against HBV is standard practice in many countries, but is often not implemented in resource-poor settings. We aimed with this cross-sectional study to determine HBV prevalence, HCW vacci...

BACKGROUND/AIMS We investigated the frequency of occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive individuals and the effects of occult HBV infection on the severity of liver disease. METHODS Seventy-one hepatitis B virus surface-antigen (HBsAg)-negative patients were divided according to their HBV serological status into groups A (anti-HBc positive, anti-HBs ...

São Paulo, December 2, 2003 Dear Editor, In the original article “The biological meaning of anti-HBc positive result in blood donors: relation to HBV-DNA and to other serological markers” published in May-June 2003, the authors stated that “a recent study shows a high prevalence of anti-HBc (16%) in blood donors” and referred our paper (ALMEIDA NETO et al., 2001). Actually, we have not studied ...