Toward the Control of Hepatitis B

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Abstract
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a remarkably successful virus. It is so well adapted to its human host that it can direct the manufacture of up to a staggering 10 trillion virus-antigen-bearing particles per milliliter of its host's plasma. Moreover, it perpetuates itself in a reservoir of persistent virus carriers, through whom infection of others is effected not only by overt percutaneous routes but also by poorly understood, more subtle avenues of transmission. Testimony to the success of HBV is its global impact: as many as 200 million persons worldwide, or approximately 5 per cent of the earth's population, have . . .