Find medicine to cure hepatitis B

Australian scientists have reported finding a complete cure for chronic hepatitis B for hundreds of experimental mice and are beginning to experiment on humans.

Australian scientist finds medicine to cure hepatitis B

The drug is birinapant - an experimental American cancer drug . Scientists say it could also be used to treat HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis.

We have been 100% successful in treating HBV (hepatitis B virus disease) for hundreds of experimental mice, Marc Pellegrini - head of the research team of Walter & Eliza Hall Institute (the oldest medical research institute) in Australia based in Melbourne).

Australian scientist finds medicine to cure hepatitis B. (Picture ST)

Birinapant, produced by the United States, has been tested on 350 Americans but has not been sold yet.

Pellegrini said that by experimenting with mice, they found it destroyed hepatitis B cells without affecting normal cells.

In particular, when birinapant is used in combination with anti-entecavir antiviral drugs, hepatitis B cells are "cleaned up" twice as quickly as birinapant alone.

We hope this promising result will also be achieved in human clinical trials - currently being implemented in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide, he said.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the world currently has more than 350 million people with chronic hepatitis B, most of them in developing countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The disease can cause liver failure, kidney failure and cancer.

The patient must take the medicine for life or until an organ transplant can be given. The disease causes more than 700,000 deaths each year.