Table 1. Characteristics of children with chronic hepatitis B and of healthy controls.

	Chronic hepatitis B
	HBeAg pos	HBeAg neg	Healthy controls
No of patients	34	26	60
Male	14 (41%)	12 (46%)	33 (55%)
Female	20 (59%)	14 (54%)	27 (45%)
Age (years)
Mean	8.8	12.0	7.1
SD	3.7	3.4	3.7
Race
African	4	6	1
Asian	22	15	9
Caucasian	8	5	50
ALT (U/l ref. value 5–45)
Mean	46.5	25.6	14.3
SD	27.6	12.6	5.3
HBV DNA (IU/ml)
Mean	5.1E+08	8.5E+02	NA
SD	1.2E+09	2.0E+03
Genotypes
A	2 (6%)	2 (8%)
B	11 (32%)	2 (8%)
C	5 (15%)	2 (8%)
D	12 (35%)	7 (27%)
E	3 (9%)	2 (8%)
F	1 (3%)	0 (0%)
N/A	0 (0%)	11 (42%)	60 (100%)

Footnote:

ALT: Alanine aminotransferase.

N/A: Not analysed.