HEPATITIS B

Hepatitis B infection (HBV)

I will start by explaining what hepatitis means. Literally it means inflammation of the Liver. Hepatitis is therefore a disease characterised by the inflammation of the liver.

I assume we all know what the Liver is and how important it is. For the benefit of those who have forgotten their biology, the liver is a vital organ located on the upper part of the right side of your abdomen. The liver is just one and it serves as the function of the factory of your body. It has loads of very vital roles including the clearing of your blood of toxins, drugs, alcohol etc. It also produces the bile that help in fat digestion, stores glycogen (storage form of glucose) for use when we lack glucose in our blood. It also produces products needed for clotting of blood, among other functions.

What causes of Hepatitis:

Hepatitis is caused by several things but the most common ones are

* Viruses
* alcohol
* drugs like paracetamol, oral contraceptives, non steroidals like ibuprofen among others
* other infections and diseases

For the purposes of this article I will focus on the viral causes.

There are five types of viruses known to cause hepatitis as follows:
Hepatitis A, B,C,D and E viruses.

Hepatitis B and C are the most virulent and dangerous.

For now let me concentrate on Hepatitis B virus (HBV )

Facts about HBV infection

* About 2 billion suffer from it worldwide. This shows how quick this disease spreads
* about 350 million people suffer from the chronic form of the disease known as chronic HBV
* the bad news is that it has no cure
* the good news is that it is preventable
* though it has no cure there are medications available to help the sufferer from progressing to the severe forms.
* it is the 10th leading cause of death worldwide
* it usually takes between 40 days to 160 days for symptoms to develop after exposure to the virus
* Several sufferers show no symptom at all, yet they can still infect others.
* most of the symptoms are non specific and can be mistaken for malaria, flu, typhoid etc.

How is HBV spread

* sexually : both vaginal and anal

* through transfusion of contaminated blood or blood products

* vertical transmission being from a woman to her baby during child birth

* reuse of contaminated needles and syringes

* there are also evidence that it can be passed through kissing and breast feeding.

What is the fate of someone who contacts the virus?

There are different scenarios and some of them are as follows :

* you may show no symptoms and after a few months infection clears completely
* you may show no symptoms but infection stays quiet in the liver . This is known as silent or anicteric hepatitis B infection. Though you don't show symptoms you can infect others.
* you may develop acute hepatitis B infection. What does this mean?
This is when the infection stays in your body from when you contact it to about 3 months.
* this acute hepatitis may gradually clear over the 3 months period and you get well completely or you may develop any or some of the following:

A very severe form of acute hepatitis known as a fulminant liver failure . This means your liver has failed and may require a liver transplant to live or you may die.
Chronic hepatitis which means you have carried this infection for up to 6 months and beyond . This Chronic Hepatitis B infection can also progress to very hopeless conditions like cirrhosis where your liver is scarred or even cancer of the liver known as hepatocellular cancer.

Part 2 to follow, watch out.

Thanks for reading

Dr Chin Akano
26/09/2012