Hepatitis Viruses Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The word combines hepar for liver with the suffix denoting inflammation, and the hepatitis viruses are so called because the liver is their principal target. Other organs may be involved but the liver injury defines the disease.

Answer: C

The grouping is clinical rather than taxonomic: they belong to five different families, carry different genomes and spread by different routes, but each targets the liver. That is why their epidemiology and prevention differ so much.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Hepatitis A

Hepatitis A is a naked picornavirus, and its lack of an envelope makes it resistant to acid, detergents and drying - which is exactly what a virus spread by the faecal-oral route needs. B, C and D are all enveloped, correspondingly fragile outside the body, and spread by blood rather than through the gut.

Answer: A

Because infection is often silent, the safe assumption is that any blood may carry a blood-borne virus, so barrier precautions apply to everyone rather than to those known to be infected. Vaccination complements the practice rather than replacing it.

Answer: B

Passive antibody gives immediate cover while the vaccine builds a lasting response, so the two are given together and promptly. Antibiotics have no role against a virus, and waiting loses the chance to prevent infection.

Answer: C

Correct answer: infection acquired then is very likely to become chronic

The risk of chronicity falls steeply with age at infection: about 90 per cent in a newborn, 30 per cent in a young child, under 5 per cent in an adult. Since chronic infection carries the risk of cirrhosis and cancer, preventing infection at birth prevents most of the disease burden.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Hepatitis B

Chronic hepatitis B is the leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide, and the risk is present even without cirrhosis because the virus integrates into the host genome. Hepatitis C also causes it but generally by way of cirrhosis, and universal infant vaccination against B has already reduced childhood liver cancer where it has been introduced.

Answer: A

Correct answer: accelerates progression to cirrhosis

Alcohol and chronic viral hepatitis injure the liver by different routes and their effects compound, so fibrosis advances considerably faster than either would produce alone. Abstinence is therefore part of the management of chronic hepatitis rather than incidental advice.

Answer: B

Many infections run their course without the patient ever becoming yellow, particularly in young children, so the illness passes as a non-specific feverish upset. Such cases are missed clinically and contribute substantially to spread.

Answer: C

Chronic infection is typically silent for years or decades while fibrosis advances quietly, so many were diagnosed only when liver disease became apparent. That is why testing has moved to offering it by age group rather than waiting for symptoms.