Management of hepatitis B virus infection in the underprivileged world.

摘要

Among the many initiatives of the World Health Organization (WHO), the 'integrated global alert and response system for epidemics and other public health emergencies' (http://www.who.int/csr/en/) is one of the most important for confronting and preventing global epidemics. Hepatotropic viruses are an important part of this project because of their universal diffusion and their impact on liver-related mortality. Among them, the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the most prevalent worldwide. It is estimated that 2 billion people have had contact with the virus and that about 350 million people are chronic carriers (1). More importantly, almost half of the people in the world live in geographical areas of high HBV endemicity, and a number of these areas suffer from poor economic conditions and weak national health systems (Table 1). In countries that have significant constraints on resources, the implementation of effective strategies for the prevention of viral transmission and the creation of national programmes to diagnose and treat HBV-related chronic liver disease are of paramount importance (2).