Science Questions

How many classes of hepatitis virus are there and how are they different?

How many classes of hepatitis virus are there and how are they different? Dali Waverider, Second Life

We put this to Graeme Alexander:

Graeme -   Well a lot of viruses can affect the liver, but there’s five that we recognize as important in the liver and they're HepatitisA, B, C, D, and E - rather imaginative aren’t we?

The most important thing about hepatitis C is that it, by and large causes an infection that lasts for a lifetime while the other viruses don't (usually).  So that differentiates it quite easily.  And it’s an RNA virus whereas hepatitis B is a DNA virus infection.  But that’s sort of a semantic difference.  The important thing about hepatitis C is that it causes lifelong infection in many people.

December 2009