FIG. 3.

Dual and triple combination therapy decreased viremia in chronically infected ducks. Experimental protocols of the two short-term studies (studies 1 [A] and 2 [B]) and the long-term study (study 3 [C]) are described in detail in Materials and Methods and in Tables 3 and 4. Viremia (in picograms/milliliter) was monitored by DHBV DNA quantification by using a dot blot assay and/or real-time PCR. The mean viremia levels for each group from studies 1, 2, and 3 are plotted on the graphs shown in panels A, B, and C, respectively; the first two are displayed on a log y axis. The black bar indicates the antiviral treatment period. The limit of detection of DHBV DNA was 200 pg/ml for dot blot analysis and 100 copies/ml for the real-time PCR assay. In studies 1 and 3, all ducks were sacrificed at the end of study while in study 2 only half of the ducks were sacrificed at the end of treatment.