Two local universities made their studies results public on Thursday telling that new medication telbivudine suppresses hepatitis B virus (HBV) better than traditional treatments.

University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) held a joint press conference on Thursday revealing that telbivudine works better than commonly prescribed medicine lamivudine and adefovir in restraining HBV.

The results of the studies done by HKU and CUHK were published in a British medical journal New England Journal of Medicine and an American medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine respectively in December, 2007.

The studies included comparisons of the effectiveness between telbivudine and lamivudine, and that between telbivudine and adefovir. More than 1,000 hepatitis B patients joined the studies.

According to the results, after a year of medical treatment, 60 percent of patients who were under telbivudine treatment achieved non-detectable HBV level in blood serum; while only about 40 percent of those who had medication with lamivudine or adefovir achieved the same level.

The results also show that, the new medicine at a price in between the two traditional ones, was well tolerated and had only very few side effects.

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2008)