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World J Hepatol. Jun 28, 2015; 7(12): 1660-1670
Published online Jun 28, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i12.1660
Induced immunity against hepatitis B virus
Zeinab Nabil Ahmed Said, Kouka Saadeldin Abdelwahab
Zeinab Nabil Ahmed Said, Kouka Saadeldin Abdelwahab, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine (for girls), Al-Azhar University, Cairo 11754, Egypt
Author contributions: Said ZNA and Abdelwahab KS contributed equally to this review.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors report no potential conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Zeinab Nabil Ahmed Said, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine (for girls), Al-Azhar University, Nasr City, Cairo 11754, Egypt. znabil58@yahoo.com
Telephone: +20-2-1006602418
Received: August 29, 2014
Peer-review started: August 30, 2014
First decision: December 17, 2014
Revised: January 15, 2015
Accepted: May 27, 2015
Article in press: May 28, 2015
Published online: June 28, 2015
Processing time: 304 Days and 14.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 2 billion people have been infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Of these, approximately 240 million are chronically infected and at risk of serious illness or death from development of cirrhosis and subsequent progression to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), estimated to cause one million deaths each year worldwide. Prevention and control of HBV infection can therefore make a significant contribution to community health and to saving lives by preventing HCC. This review concerns the major advances in the field of HBV over the last few decades which have resulted in understanding the natural history of HBV infection and the development of effective vaccines against the virus. In the era of universal HBV vaccination coverage, the current growing body of knowledge regarding monitoring and surveillance of HBV vaccination programs and the policy of booster vaccination, several issues have to be evaluated regarding the vaccination policy and booster doses. In addition, it is worth evaluating vaccine-escape viral mutants, long-term protection and the therapeutic use of HBV vaccine as a promising new strategy for controlling chronic HBV infection.