More than 250 million people worldwide are chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). In this Comment, members of the International Coalition to Eliminate HBV appraise the current policy environment and the need for appropriate cure research and preparedness to complement the WHO global elimination strategy, the HBV vaccine and the well-tolerated but poorly accessed therapy.
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The authors thank J. Pericàs and H. Nde for their input into an earlier draft of this article.
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WHO/UNICEF birth-dose vaccination coverage estimates: http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tswucoveragebcg.html
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Lazarus, J.V., Block, T., Bréchot, C. et al. The hepatitis B epidemic and the urgent need for cure preparedness. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 15, 517–518 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41575-018-0041-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41575-018-0041-6
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