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TZubiri | on: New drug 'functionally cures' many hepatitis B virus infections
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?

rustyhancock | parent | next
For now all one can say is transmission is assumed to be dramatically reduced.

The bigger risk is likely that in some the suppression is temporary or transient flares of replication under some circumstances.

The other question is, does this avoid all the sequela of HBV. It seems to reduce risk of cirrhosis atleast.

For hiv, it took many decades to be able to make the clam undetectable = untransmittable using serodiscordant couple studies.

sleepyguy | parent | next
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.
altairprime | parent | next
(Meta note: This exposure scenario hinges on whether the second party has previously completed the HepB vaccine schedule. So, for those evaluating this risk equation, duly noted that a vaccine exists that the yet-uninfected party above could have received.)
Perenti | parent
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 | root | parent | next
> 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".

halapro | root | parent
Isn't half the selling point of antiretroviral therapy that you're no longer contagious?

https://i-base.info/u-equals-u/

U=U probably does not apply to all diseases for the reasons you mentioned though.

abc123abc123 | root | parent
Ahh, the classic corona fallacy. If you have something, X, which you cannot detect. Then you can count it as zero, since all you can do, is speculation not backed by any empirical evidence. If there is something you can detect and measure, then, we can start the great a mighty process of science.
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