Reduced Prevalence of HBsAg Variants following a Successful Immunization Program in China

The content of the recent paper of Bian et al., entitled “Change in hepatitis B virus large surface antigen variant prevalence 13 years after implementation of a universal vaccination program in China” (1), was discussed at our recent Viral Hepatitis Prevention Board meeting (Split, Croatia, November 2013). On behalf of this group of experts (a list of Viral Hepatitis Prevention Board advisers is available at www.vhpb.org), we would like to reply with some major comments on this article.