Different tests to confirm Hepatitis B?
What is Hepatitis B?
Hepatitis B is a vaccine curable, liver-damaging infection. Hepatitis affects the person mildly and cures in less time. Often, acute hepatitis does not require any special treatment. In other cases, hepatitis causes chronic infections. Chronic hepatitis can lead to liver failure, scarring of the organ, and sometimes cancer.
A human body becomes immune to the disease for the rest of its life if the body fights the virus within a few months. That is how the vaccine helps us become immune to the virus. But if one gets the virus at the time of birth, it is difficult to cure it.
How is Hepatitis B caused?
Hepatitis is an inflammation in the liver. The HBV (Hepatitis B Virus) is transmittable. One can spread the virus without getting infected (If that person is immune). The virus can be transmitted through common activities like: -
1. Unprotected sex: — One can get HBV infected if he/she has unprotected sex with an infected person. The virus can be transmitted through semen or vaginal secretions and saliva.
2. Contact of blood: — Virus can spread through contact of blood with an infected person. Contaminated syringes or needles which come in contact with another patient or health care worker can easily spread the virus
3. Mother to offspring: — An infected pregnant woman can spread the virus to her offspring during childbirth. However, there is a vaccine available to prevent such situations.
Symptoms of Hepatitis B
The first type of acute hepatitis C mostly does not show any symptoms. Infected children below five years do not show any symptoms at all. Some of the common symptoms are: -
1. Fever
2. Fatigue
3. Joint pains
4. Fever
5. Jaundice: — The skin and the sclera (white of the eye) of the infected person turn yellow, and the urine turns orange or brown.
Testing and Treatment of Hepatitis B
It is difficult to tell if a person is infected just by looking at him/her. Hepatitis B can be found out only through medical tests.
1. Blood test: — A normal blood test can tell if a person is infected with HBV or no. The test can also tell if the infection is acute or chronic and if the person is immune to the virus or not.
2. Liver ultrasound: Once a person is tested positive for the virus, a test called ‘transient elastography’ can determine the liver’s amount of damage.
3. Liver biopsy: Biopsy removes a small sample of the liver tissue to check the damage. The doctor uses a needle and pierces it into the skin, and takes a liver tissue for testing.
The number of infected people has dropped from 2,00,000 per year in the 1980s to 20,000 in 2016. Hepatitis B mainly affects people of the age of 20 to 49 years.
In the test of hepatitis B, they look for
1. HBsAg: — These are the antigens of the virus, i.e., proteins on the virus, also called HBsAg. These antigens appear in the blood in between 1 to 10 weeks of virus exposure.
2. Anti-HBs: — Once you’re diagnosed with hepatitis B, you find anti-HBs in your blood. These are the bodies that determine the immunity of one’s body to the virus.
The doctors give the patient a vaccine and a hepatitis B immune globulin. These hepatitis B medicines increase the immunity of the patient and fight the infection.
