A case of acute severe hepatitis B caused by an HBV-Ae strain transmitted from her male sexual partner who also contracted acute hepatitis three months before

A 23 year old female was admitted to our hospital for general malaise and live function test abnormalities, and was diagnosed with acute hepatitis B. She showed grade-I coma and prothrombin time was prolonged. As for the source of infection, her male sexual partner was suspected because he had contracted acute hepatitis B 3 months before. Nucleotide sequence analyses indicated that both his and her isolates segregate to genotype Ae, and showed 99.9%-identity to each other over the entire preS/S region. The partner had had sex repeatedly with prostitutes before onset of his illness. As illustrated by the present case, merely a tip of iceberg perhaps, HBV is now spreading by sex in younger generations. Some public health measures are thus warranted.