A few questions about hepatitis B

Living With Hep B Treatment and Monitoring
1

Greetings everyone, I have friends with this disease, they were diagnosed at the age of about 22-27 years, they are rarely checked by doctors, but I worry about them, so please tell me the answers to these questions:

  1. Should antiviral drugs be taken always and by everyone without exception? Or only under certain conditions?
  2. How serious are the side effects of antivirals?
  3. Is it possible to live a long and fulfilling life until old age with this disease?
  4. If a person who does not have the virus, but who has been vaccinated against it, can he be a carrier of the virus by contact with infected blood? Or will the virus die in this case?
  5. What do you think of this new method: https://www.cell.com/molecular-therapy-family/nucleic-acids/fulltext/S2162-2531(23)00021-5
2

Dear @user1,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for the questions!

  1. This is not the current recommendation in areas where you can get appropriate testing. Most guidelines suggest treatment if you have high viral loads, in the following instances:
    a. you have family history of liver cancer or failure
    b. you have evidence of liver damage
    c. can be considered if you are over 30
    d. other risk factors can be included (such as co-infection)
  2. For most people, there are no or minimal side-effects associated with the antivirals. For those who do get side-effects, there are options (e.g. changing formulation or the actual antiviral drug)
  3. Yes, definitely you can live a normal and long life. This forum is a testament to that. I certainly live close to a normal life most of the time.
  4. If you have been vaccinated and have protective levels of antibody (more than 10mIU/mL of anti-HBs), you are generally safe from infection even if exposed to the virus.
  5. This approach is definitely being taken seriously and there are several pre-clinical tests looking into using CRISPR to target HBV DNA, in order to develop a cure. This is very early research however.

Hope these help,
Thomas

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3

Thanks for answers!
On question 4, I want to clarify. I mean, if Iā€™m vaccinated and exposed to infected blood, can I infect someone else myself? I hope you understood the question correctly, I just use Google Translate. :slight_smile:

4

Dear @User1,

Ah I see. The risk of transmitting it this way is incredibly small. When the virus is exposed to the antibodies in your blood, they would be almost instantaneously neutralised, so would not be able to infect other people.

Hope this helps,
Thomas

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