April 24 (UPI) -- A new study has shown that an antiviral treatment given to women during pregnancy can help prevent transmission of hepatitis B from mother to child.
Chronic hepatitis B infection affects roughly 240 million people worldwide and can be transmitted from mother to baby in about 90 percent of births if untreated. More than 600,000 people die each year from hepatitis B infections and complications.
Researchers analyzed previous published studies on the effectiveness of the antiviral drug tenofovir given to pregnant women in the second or third trimester to prevent mother to child transmission of hepatitis B.
Universal vaccination of newborn babies has decreased the rates of hepatitis B transmission to between 10 percent and 30 percent.
Researchers from the Korea University Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea, found the risk of maternal transmission to the baby was reduced further, to just 3 percent, when the mother also receives the antiviral drug tenofovir during pregnancy.
They analyzed 10 studies of 733 women, finding tenofovir significantly reduced the risk of infant hepatitis B by 77 percent.
The study was published in Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics.
