The first professional guidelines on how to prevent and treat the hepatitis B virus in China were released on Saturday.

The current arrival of more and more antiviral drugs onto the medical market has brought feelings of both hope and chaos due to the relatively limited knowledge Chinese doctors have on the treatment of hepatitis B. Irregular treatment is inflicting heavy economic burdens on patients, hepatitis experts have said.

"A professional treatment guideline is very important for both medical workers and patients," said Zhuang Hui, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering from Peking University and director of the Society of Hepatitis Diseases, attached to the Chinese Medical Association.

More than 80 medical experts from the Society of Hepatitis Diseases and the Infectious Diseases Society under the Chinese Medical Association have spent a year working on the guidelines, with the help of advice from more than 1,000 clinical hepatitis doctors around the country.

The guidelines detail the effects of major anti-viral drugs with recommendations of the most appropriate treatments.

"However, it should be noted that the guidelines only offer advise to doctors in order to aid them when treating hepatitis B, they are not an obligatory clinical rule. They should work out the best forms of treatment based on their own clinical observations of individual cases," said Zhuang.

The consistency and success of treatment provided to hepatitis B patients by expert practitioners in this field are worrying, according to Weng Xinhua, director of the Society of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases attached to the Chinese Medical Association.

Recent surveys conducted by China Foundation of Hepatitis Prevention and Control and No 302 Hospital of PLA showed that 45 percent of anti-viral specialists were not fully aware of standard anti-viral treatment procedures. In addition, only 19 percent of hepatitis B patients were sticking to their prescribed long-term anti-viral treatments.

Inconsistent treatment often brings unfavorable effects to patients, who fail to receive successful treatment at a high cost both economically and in terms of health, Weng said.

Currently many doctors are treating hepatitis B carriers with anti-viral drugs that can lead to viral variations, thus failing to successfully treat patients.

Experts have proposed that immunization is the most effective method of curbing the spread of hepatitis B. In particular they have recommended immunizations for new-borns and high-risk groups such as those frequently coming into contact with blood, drug users and highly sexually active individuals.

(China Daily December 12, 2005)