First Discoveries on Viral Hepatitis

Viral hepatitis is a very common infectious diseaseResearchers later concluded that antigen Aa was
responsible for causing more than 1.5 million annualactually a component part of the virus identified to
deaths among afflicted patients. Despite the factcause hepatitis B.
that extensive data reports on viral hepatitis haveThe findings determined medical scientists to take
been first established at the beginning of the 20thadditional measures in preventing the occurrence of
century, the causes of the disease remainedhepatitis among the population. By testing blood
unknown until the 1940s, when the implication of atransfusions for the presence of the causative virus,
new virus in triggering the disease was first revealed.scientists hoped to reduce the risks of transmitting
Performing additional research on hepatitis, virologistshepatitis from one individual to another. The method
have later discovered two major distinctive types ofused to detect the presence of the virus in the blood
hepatitis: hepatitis type A and hepatitis type B.was given the name of radioimmunoassay. In
Concerned by the increasing numbers of hepatitispresent, this technique is still used to test the
cases due to blood transfusions, medical scientistsintegrity and safety of blood transfusions and other
have conducted a series of more elaborate medicalblood products. Appreciated for its efficiency and
investigations in order to identify conclusive factsreliability, radioimmunoassay is the predecessor of
regarding the occurrence and progression of hepatitis.today's modern techniques used in blood screening.
Intrigued by the fact that increasingly larger numbersAnother breakthrough consisted in finding an
of persons who received blood transfusionseffective vaccine against hepatitis. For the first time
experienced symptoms such as high fever, chills andin history, the main curative agent used in creating
skin rashes, doctors decided to carefully analyze athe vaccine was actually a modified strain of the
series of immune reactions to foreign proteins incausative virus. By altering the virus in the laboratory
blood samples taken from such persons in order toand introducing it in a vaccine, virologists were able to
reveal the exact sources of their symptoms. Afterstimulate an immune reaction to that particular virus in
comparing the immune reactions of the persons whothe human body. A few years later, the ongoing
had been administered blood transfusions with thoseresearch conducted on hepatitis led to another crucial
of people in good health, medical scientists were ablediscovery: the HCV - hepatitis C virus. Short after,
to reveal a type of protein that rarely reacted withmedical scientists came up with efficient vaccines for
antibodies produced by the immune system.all existing hepatitis virus types: A, B and C.
Due to the fact that the analyzed immune reactionOver a period of only a few decades, doctors
was extremely rare, medical scientists concluded thatdiscovered valuable facts on hepatitis, as well as
it wasn't caused by genetic particularities in theefficient methods of preventing its transmission.
human blood, but by a certain type of infectiousThanks to the remarkable findings of several pioneer
agent. The discovered infectious agent later receivedvirologists and biologists, medical science was
the name of antigen Aa. After continuing theirrevolutionized and the mystery around many
research on blood proteins, doctors discovered adifferent viral infectious diseases was finally unveiled.
correlation between antigen Aa and hepatitis.