An antiviral drug, which was recently approved by the US Food and
Drug Administration for treating
AIDS, has been found to have the
potential to treat chronic hepatitis B
infection too. Lamivudine, or 3TC,
.the drug manufactured by the
Glaxo Wellcome group under the
brand name Epivir, is reported to
have cured 20 hepatitis B patients
at the Massachusettes General
Hospital in the US.
Hepatitis B is a kind of liver
disease usually transmitted through
sexual contact or contaminated
needles. So far, the only treatment
has been interferon (the protein
released by the body's immune
system in response to an invading
virus). Interferon injections, however,
have side effects that the new
drug hardly has.
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