Is the Infection Treatable?
While there are medications to treat hepatitis B infection, there is no cure. The options are limited, and the treatment does not work well in most cases. These medications are aimed to reduce the chance of liver failure and liver cancer from chronic hepatitis B infection. If the infection is acquired during early childhood, the medications are especially useless.
Essential
Several new drugs have been approved in the last five years to treat hepatitis B. They work by stopping the virus from reproducing inside the body. They bring new hope to the horizon of hepatitis B treatment, but none of them is capable of eradicating the infection.
In most cases, the treatments only postpone the more serious illnesses. They simply buy more time for the victim, and they do not offer any real hope for those who already have chronic liver infection.
If a mother infected with hepatitis B is found to have the infection at the time of birth, she can receive immunoglobulin against hepatitis B to reduce the chance of her passing the infection to her baby. This emergency treatment, however, depends on the availability of the immunoglobulin. This treatment is not possible for home deliveries.
