Adapting personal glucose monitors to detect DNA

An inexpensive device used by millions of people with diabetes could be adapted into a home DNA detector that enables individuals to perform home tests for viruses and bacteria in human body fluids, in food and in other substances, ...

Maths model to prevent deadly disease spread

Innovative mathematical models designed to calculate which sectors of the population need vaccinating during an infectious disease outbreak could save money and lives.

Coronavirus formation is successfully modeled

A physicist at the University of California, Riverside, and her former graduate student have successfully modeled the formation of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that spreads COVID-19, for the first time.

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Hepatitis B

Hepatitis B is a disease caused by HBV hepatitis B virus which infects the liver of hominoidae, including humans, and causes an inflammation called hepatitis. Originally known as "serum hepatitis", the disease has caused epidemics in parts of Asia and Africa, and it is endemic in China. About a third of the world's population, more than 2 billion people, have been infected with the hepatitis B virus. This includes 350 million chronic carriers of the virus. Transmission of hepatitis B virus results from exposure to infectious blood or body fluids containing blood.

The acute illness causes liver inflammation, vomiting, jaundice and—rarely—death. Chronic hepatitis B may eventually cause liver cirrhosis and liver cancer—a fatal disease with very poor response to current chemotherapy. The infection is preventable by vaccination.

Hepatitis B virus is an hepadnavirus—hepa from hepatotrophic and dna because it is a DNA virus—and it has a circular genome composed of partially double-stranded DNA. The viruses replicate through an RNA intermediate form by reverse transcription, and in this respect they are similar to retroviruses. Although replication takes place in the liver, the virus spreads to the blood where virus-specific proteins and their corresponding antibodies are found in infected people. Blood tests for these proteins and antibodies are used to diagnose the infection.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA