BACKGROUND Occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection (OBI) is characterized by HBV DNA persistence even though the pattern of serological markers indicates an otherwise resolved HBV infection. Although OBI is usually clinically silent, immunocompromised patients may experience reactivation of the liver disease. CASE PRESENTATION We report the case of an individual with human immunodeficiency v...

More than 300 million people worldwide are chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Considering the very short generation time for a virus, and the high error rate associated with the reverse transcription step of HBV replication, decades of HBV infection are probably equivalent to million years of human evolution. The most important selective force during the natural course of HBV in...

BACKGROUND Occult hepatitis B infection (OBI) is a major public health problem worldwide, which harbors potential risk of hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission through blood transfusion and transplantation. OBI is characterized by the presence of HBV-DNA in the blood or liver tissue without detectable hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in the serum. An important cause of OBI is the occurrence o...

There are only two currently approved classes of hepatitis B virus (HBV) antiviral agents, pegylated interferon (Peg-IFN), and nucleos(t)ide analogs (NAs) for chronic HBV infection. Although Peg-IFN is used for a finite 48-week duration and offers a greater chance of sustained off-treatment virological response, it is poorly tolerated and can only be offered to selected patients. The NAs are we...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Though sensitive screening assays for detection of hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg) are available, occasional cases of post-transfusion hepatitis B virus infection (PTH) still occur. The present study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of anti-hepatitis B core (anti-HBc) positivity and presence of HBV-DNA in serum sample of healthy blood donors negative for ...

background: in patients who are hepatitis b virus (hbv) dna-positive, but hbv surface antigen (hbsag) -negative, the infection is referred to as occult hepatitis b infection (obi). occult hbv infection is harmful when other liver diseases are present, and can aggravate liver damage in in patients with chronic liver diseases. in human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) infection the suppression of vir...

BACKGROUND The seroprevalences of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are 0.4% and 0.8%, respectively, in Canada, but varying rates have been reported in different populations. OBJECTIVES To determine the seroprevalences of HBV and HCV among attendees of an Asian health fair in the Lower Mainland, British Columbia, as well as to correlate questionnaire answers regarding vaccin...

The current treatments of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) face a limited choice of vaccine, antibody and antiviral agents. The development of additional antiviral agents is still needed for improvement of CHB therapy. In this study, we established a screening system in order to identify compounds inhibiting the core promoter activity of hepatitis B virus (HBV). We prepared 80 extracts of marine organ...

Hepatitis B is a liver inflammation caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV) and can be diagnosed in clinical stage by hepatitis B core antibody from IgM class (anti-HBcIgM). Hepatitis B core antibody from IgG class (Anti-HBcIgG) appears quickly after IgM, reaching high titers in chronic hepatitis, and remains even after cure. Since hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) is the first antibody identified...

dna coding for the core antigen from hepatitis b virus (hbcag) was amplified, cloned and propagated in e. coli. the core protein was expressed in e. coli and the product was readily detected by western blot. this protein can be used as a diagnostic material in serum screening tests. to increase the level of expression of this antigen in bacteria, two plasmids were constructed in which the gene ...