Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and Its Vertical Transmission

HBV is transmitted by direct blood-to-blood contact. A major transmission route is sharing drug equipment for both injection and non-injection drugs (including needles, cookers, tourniquets, cocaine straws, and crack pipes). Needles used for tattooing and body piercing may also spread the virus. Sharing personal items such as razors, toothbrushes, and nail files is a less likely but still possible transmission route. This can happen when a small amount of HBV-infected blood remains on an item after use and is transferred to another person who uses the same item.Vertical transmission of HB virus (HBV) is the main cause of chronic HBV infection in endemic areas. When the mother is a chronic HBsAg carrier (and positive for viral DNA in her serum), the risk of the neonates to become a chronic carrier himself is closed to 80 to 90% (Lee et al., 2006).Our previous studies have provided the first direct evidence that the HB genes could be expressed in one- and two-cell embryos originated from golden hamster ova in vitro fertilized with human spermatozoa (Ali et al., 2005; 2006a,b; 2009).