Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Aug 31;14(9):1939.
doi: 10.3390/v14091939.

Hepatitis B Virus Research in South Africa

Mohube B Maepa  1 , Abdullah Ely  1 , Anna Kramvis  2 , Kristie Bloom  1 , Kubendran Naidoo  1   3 , Omphile E Simani  4 , Tongai G Maponga  5 , Patrick Arbuthnot  1
Affiliations
Review

Hepatitis B Virus Research in South Africa

Mohube B Maepa et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Despite being vaccine-preventable, hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains the seventh leading cause of mortality in the world. In South Africa (SA), over 1.9 million people are chronically infected with HBV, and 70% of all Black chronic carriers are infected with HBV subgenotype A1. The virus remains a significant burden on public health in SA despite the introduction of an infant immunization program implemented in 1995 and the availability of effective treatment for chronic HBV infection. In addition, the high prevalence of HIV infection amplifies HBV replication, predisposes patients to chronicity, and complicates management of the infection. HBV research has made significant progress leading to better understanding of HBV epidemiology and management challenges in the SA context. This has led to recent revision of the national HBV infection management guidelines. Research on developing new vaccines and therapies is underway and progress has been made with designing potentially curative gene therapies against HBV. This review summarizes research carried out in SA on HBV molecular biology, epidemiology, treatment, and vaccination strategies.

Keywords: HBV; HBV/HIV co-infection; gene therapy; occult HBV infection; vaccination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Gene therapy tools used for targeted disruption of HBV replication in South Africa. (A) RNAi activators such as short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs), artificial primary microRNAs (apri-miRNAs), and short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) targeting hepatitis B x (HBx) sequence were designed and delivered using adenoviral vectors (AdVs), AdVs/lentiviral vectors (LVs)/adeno-associated viral vectors (AAVs) and liposomes, respectively. (B) Transcription activator-like effector endonucleases (TALENS) targeting Core or Surface and Transcription activator-like repressors (rTALEs) targeting Surface were generated and delivered as naked plasmid DNA. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) with CRISPR-associated (Cas) RNA-guided nucleases (CRISPR/c as) targeting Surface were designed and delivered using AAVs (Created with biorender.com).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Alberts C.J., Clifford G.M., Georges D., Negro F., A Lesi O., Hutin Y.J.-F., de Martel C. Worldwide prevalence of hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus among patients with cirrhosis at country, region, and global levels: A systematic review. Lancet Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 2022;7:724–735. doi: 10.1016/S2468-1253(22)00050-4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Schweitzer A., Horn J., Mikolajczyk R.T., Krause G., Ott J.J. Estimations of worldwide prevalence of chronic hepatitis B virus infection: A systematic review of data published between 1965 and 2013. Lancet. 2015;386:1546–1555. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61412-X. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Amponsah-Dacosta E. Hepatitis B virus infection and hepatocellular carcinoma in sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for elimination of viral hepatitis by 2030? World J. Gastroenterol. 2021;27:6025–6038. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i36.6025. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Platt L., French C.E., McGowan C.R., Sabin K., Gower E., Trickey A., McDonald B., Ong J., Stone J., Easterbrook P., et al. Prevalence and burden of HBV co-infection among people living with HIV: A global systematic review and meta-analysis. J. Viral Hepat. 2019;27:294–315. doi: 10.1111/jvh.13217. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nguyen M.H., Wong G., Gane E., Kao J.-H., Dusheiko G. Hepatitis B Virus: Advances in Prevention, Diagnosis, and Therapy. Clin. Microbiol. Rev. 2020;33:e00046-19. doi: 10.1128/CMR.00046-19. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances