Nature of Host Immunity during Hepatitis B Virus Infection and designing Immune Therapy

The natural course of HBV infection differs among individuals and seems to be dependent on several factors, some of which may be related to virus and the others may be host-related. Almost all estimates indicate that about 2 billion people have been infected by HBV at some point of time in their life; however, about 80 to 90% (~1.7 billion) control both HBV replication and liver damages by some mechanisms and those are not yet completely clear and understandable. 1 About 240 to 370 million HBV-infected individuals show persistent HBV replication, a fact that is evaluated by presence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in the blood. Also, HBV deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) would be present