• Margaret Littlejohn, Lesley-Anne Jaskowski, Ros Edwards, Kathy Jackson, Lilly Yuen, Darrel Crawford, Stephen A Locarnini, and Graham Cooksley.
• Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Department of Infectious Disease, University of Melbourne, at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• Intern Med J. 2024 Jan 1; 54 (1): 129138129-138.

BackgroundChronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major health problem for all Indigenous Australians. Post-2000, Hepatitis B surface antigen prevalence has decreased, although remaining four times higher among Indigenous compared with non-Indigenous people.AimsThis study aimed to characterise the HBV from Indigenous populations in Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands.MethodsSerum samples were collected, with consent, from people within Queensland Indigenous communities prior to 1990 as part of the Queensland Health vaccination programme. Ethics approval was subsequently obtained to further characterise the HBV from 93 of these stored samples. HBV DNA was extracted and genotype was obtained from 82 samples. HBV full genome sequencing was carried out for a subset of 14 samples.ResultsSeventy-eight samples were identified as genotype C (2 × C12, 3 × C13 and 73 × C14), one sample as genotype A (A2) and three samples as genotype D (1 × D2, 1 × D3 and 1 × D4). The HBV/C sequences identified were most closely related to sequences isolated from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia (Papua Province).ConclusionsThe HBV isolated from the Torres Strait Islanders was notably different to the HBV/C4 strain isolated from Indigenous people of mainland northern Australia, with no evidence of recombination. This reflects the differences in culture and origin between Torres Strait Islanders and mainland Indigenous people.© 2023 The Authors. Internal Medicine Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

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