New drug 'functionally cures' many hepatitis B virus infections

New drug 'functionally cures' many hepatitis B virus infections(science.org)

95 points by gmays 3 hours ago | 11 comments

amwet 18 minutes ago |

Pretty sure the cover image is a Strokes album cover.

halapro 14 minutes ago |

I'm surprised that they're working on HB cures since there's been an HB vaccine for 40 years.

I'd love to see more work done towards other incurable viruses like HSV (no vaccine) and HPV (limited vaccine)

Centigonal 3 minutes ago | |

Herpes viruses like HSV are notoriously difficult to target with medication bc they encode themselves into DNA inside the nuclei of long-lived human nerve cells. Between outbreaks, they basically exist only as rogue DNA floating inside mostly-healthy cells in the nerve ganglia.

tfourb 7 minutes ago | |

There are > 800.000 yearly deaths due to hep b.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_B

Yes, there is an effective vaccine but not everyone has access to it for tons of reasons.

TZubiri 2 hours ago |

Are treated patients still contagious?

If so, if a treated patient spreads the virus, will that new patient carry an innoculated virus? Or will they suffer a standard infection?

Perenti 33 minutes ago | |

I'm pretty sure that if the virus and its DNA are undetectable then you can't spread it. I believe that's how it works with HIV anyway.

deadmutex 24 minutes ago | | |

> if the virus and its DNA are undetectable then you can't spread it

The devil may be in the details. E.g. if a COVID test shows negative, it doesn't mean that you can't spread it. This is partly because different tests have different sensitivities.

> I'm pretty sure

FYI, without citations, it is hard to distinguish credible experts vs people on the internet saying "trust me bro".

sleepyguy 30 minutes ago | |

A patient that is functionally cured shouldn't pass on the disease. Since it is cleared from the blood and the viral DNA is undetectable, it is not replicating anymore, so it can't be transmitted. They risk is not absolute since the dormant virus is still genetically encoded in the liver.

madanparas 1 hour ago |

The trial enrolled non-cirrhotic patients with moderate baseline HBsAg (100 to 3,000 IU/mL) already on stable nucleotide analogue therapy. That selection matters because HBV-related deaths are driven almost entirely by cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, and those outcomes cluster in patients with higher antigen loads and advanced disease. The 19% result is real and independently replicated in over 1,800 patients, but whether bepirovirsen reduces the 1.1 million HBV deaths per year depends on trials in populations that weren't enrolled here.

skissane 10 minutes ago | |

> The 19% result is real and independently replicated in over 1,800 patients, but whether bepirovirsen reduces the 1.1 million HBV deaths per year depends on trials in populations that weren't enrolled here.

Do we know, how many of those deaths are due to limitations of existing treatments, versus how many are due to health care access issues?