Taiwan's experience of fighting Hepatitis B virus (HBV,
Hepatitis B virus is one of the most common infectious diseases in the world. Around 10 percent of those infected with this virus develop chronic HBV infection, one of the leading causes of cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer. These diseases cause an estimated 10,000 deaths in Taiwan annually.
According to doctors over 20 billion people in the world have been infected by Hepatitis B, and 350 million of them have become carriers of chronic HBV infection.
The virus is widespread in Asia and the Pacific Islands. Approximately 75 percent of the world's HBV carriers are in Asia. According to the statistics, there are more than 260 million people in Asia who currently suffer from the disease.
Due to the outstanding contribution from Taiwan's doctors in this field, Taiwan's liver disease experts Chen Ting-hsin (
Consequently they were asked to devise an HBV prevention guide, to help out other Asian countries with their HBV prevention programs.
According to the guide, there are two goals to curing Hepatitis B virus: The short-term goal is to reduce the possibility of liver inflammation; the long term goal is to kill the virus, or limit multiplication of the virus.
According to the doctors, it takes six to 12 months to complete the treatment.
"Liver function will recover after patients have taken the complete course of treatment," the doctors said. "Their HBeAG (e,
However, the doctors stressed that patients who have a normal liver function should not take such a course of treatment, otherwise they could cause the virus to develop a resistance to the drugs.
The doctors said observation and examination was essential, in the course of treatment. Regular examinations for liver function, HBeAG, and infected DNA, would be needed every three months.
Lamivudine, (
Doctors are now studying the effectiveness of Lamivudine for long term treatments and are experimenting with combining it with other medicines.
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