In the United Kingdom, the National Screening Pro-gramme for identifi cation of hepatitits B virus (HBV) infec-tion in pregnant women uses HBV e antigen (HBeAg) and antibody to HBeAg (anti-HBe) as markers of infectivity to determine use of immunoglobulin for hepatitis B. Serum samples from 114 HBV-infected women were analyzed. Viral loads correlated with HBeAg/anti-HBe status and vi-ral genotypes. Among 95 mothers whose serum contained anti-HBe, viral loads ranged between undetectable and 8.6 × 106IU/mL (median 228 IU/mL). Ten (10.5%) of these mothers had plasma viral loads >104IU/mL; 6 were infected with genotype E and one each with genotypes A, B, C, and D. All viruses had precore stop codon or basal core pro-moter mutations. Preponderance of genotypes other than A among antenatal mothers in the United Kingdom re. ects increasing globalization and trends in immigration. HBeAg serostatus is no longer suffi ciently accurate for inferring po-tential infectivity of pregnant HBV carriers
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