HDV: Thirty years later

The hepatitis D virus (HDV) was discovered in Italy in the mid-1970s during a major outbreak of hepatitis D in the Mediterranean basin. The outbreak has been brought under control in Europe and throughout the industrialized world in the last twenty years; in parallel, the clinical pattern of HDV disease has consistently changed.Though the decline of hepatitis D has diminished attention to this problem and at present testing for HDV is not seldom neglected, hepatitis D is not eradicated in Europe and its circulation did not decline further in the last decade. Fresh new cases are cumulating in migrants from HDV endemic areas of the developing world.Hepatitis D remains a major health problem in many developing areas with outbreaks of the disease continuing to be reported from Asia, Africa and South Africa.