Medical experts have emphasized the importance of multidisciplinary cooperation in the management of liver diseases and the advancement toward the goal of eliminating hepatitis B by 2030 at a recent academic conference.

Wei Lai, president of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver and head of the hepato-pancreato-biliary center at Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, said that China has successfully reduced new hepatitis B infections — the most common viral hepatitis. In 2016, the positivity rate of hepatitis B surface antigen among the general population was estimated to be around 6.1 percent.

Despite this progress, there are still about eight million people living with chronic hepatitis B in China who are at a higher risk of developing liver cancer and require multidisciplinary treatment in the fields such as hepatology, oncology, organ transplantation, and more.