Hepatitis B (HBV) is a virus that can cause inflammation of the liver. It's potentially very serious. Most people who catch hepatitis B will only suffer from early stage hepatitis B - so called 'acute' hepatitis B. About 1 in 20 will develop the more serious 'chronic' hepatitis B that can cause serious damage to your liver. In 2004, around 700 acute cases of hepatitis B were diagnosed in England and Wales.
Like sufferers from hepatitis A, people with hepatitis B might not show any symptoms at all. Symptoms in people who have them include nausea, vomiting, itchy skin, loss of appetite and weight and sometimes yellow eyes and skin caused by jaundice. Symptoms occur from 2-6 months after infection.
Suffers of chronic hepatitis B might suffer fatigue, tenderness below the right ribs and in the worst case, liver failure.
Hepatitis B spreads extremely easily, often through sex, but pretty much whenever you come into contact with someone else's blood. Hepatitis B spreads about 100 times more easily that HIV through unprotected vaginal, anal or oral sex.
To test for hepatitis B doctors take a blood sample.
If you are diagnosed with early stage or 'acute' hepatitis B, there isn't much a doctor can do. If however, your hepatitis has moved on to the 'chronic' later stage then there are treatments that can limit the harm hepatitis B does to your body. To assess the level of liver damage in chronic sufferers, a doctor may wish to take a tissue sample from your liver.