Publications by authors named "Thomas Mina"
Infection by hepatitis B virus (HBV) is responsible for approximately 296 million chronic cases of hepatitis B, and roughly 880,000 deaths annually. The global burden of HBV is distributed unevenly, largely owing to the heterogeneous geographic distribution of its subtypes, each of which demonstrates different severity and responsiveness to antiviral therapy. It is therefore crucial to the global public health response to HBV that the spatiotemporal spread of each genotype is well characterized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHepatitis B is a potentially life-threatening liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). HBV-D1 is the dominant subgenotype in the Mediterranean basin, Eastern Europe, and Asia. However, little is currently known about its evolutionary history and spatio-temporal dynamics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a public health threatening virus and is classified into more than eight genotypes and more than forty subgenotypes.
Objectives: To characterize and propose novel strains assigned as A8 and D12.
Methods: Four out of 133 HBV complete genome sequences, isolated from Belgian chronic carriers with African origin were phylogenetically analyzed.
Fulminant hepatitis among different clinical outcomes of hepatitis B virus infection is very rare and manifests high mortality rate, however it has not been investigated in Belgian inhabitants yet. In the frame of a retrospective study between 1995 and 2010, 80 serum samples (in some cases serial samples) archived in Biobank, were collected from 24 patients who had clinically developed fulminant infection of hepatitis B virus. In total, 33 hepatitis B virus (HBV) strains (31 full-length genome and 2 partial viral genes) of different HBV genotypes and subgenotypes including A2, B2, D1, D2, D3 and E, were amplified, sequenced and phylogenetically analyzed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- HBV remains a significant public health challenge despite the development of a vaccine, with its high genetic diversity and the host immune response contributing to the virus's evolution and varying clinical outcomes.
- Fulminant hepatitis B presents the highest mortality rate among HBV infections, with about 1% of acutely infected patients developing this severe form, which has a mortality rate of around 70%.
- Research indicates that specific mutations in HBV's genome, particularly in regulatory regions and immune epitopes, promote aggressive strains of the virus and enhance its ability to evade the immune system, leading to a more severe disease progression.
Article Synopsis
- Hepatitis B virus (HBV) consists of eight genotypes, with genotype D being the most globally prevalent; this study focuses on non-D1 strains found in Iranian patients.
- Researchers sequenced complete genomes from nine Iranian HBV carriers, identifying four D2 and five D3 subgenotypes, with D2 strains related to those from Lebanon and Syria.
- The findings indicate that Iranian D2 and D3 strains likely originated from separate introductions from surrounding regions, highlighting the need to study these strains' mutations to understand their clinical implications better.