It, therefore, is more common in doctors, nurses and laboratory workers who are collecting and testing blood and those patients with kidney failure who require dialysis in hospital. It is also common in drug addicts who “share the needle” and become contaminated with others’ blood.

The virus has not yet been isolated and cultured but the impure virus has been identified in the blood of carriers and these particles contain the antigens which stimulate anti-body formation.

A vaccine to hepatitis  has been made and initial tests indicate it is 90 to 95 per cent effective.

The third type of hepatitis has us a little stumped. It is called type non-A, non-B rather than type C, because we as yet are uncertain about it. The incidence is not high and researchers are not yet sure whether it is a separate virus or a sub-type of either A or B.

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It appears that having sexual intercourse during pregnancy is accepted as normal behavior. However, the medical profession has been a little hesitant to accept it as being safe, particularly in the latter stages. Doctors have thought that intercourse at this time might bring on premature labor or lead to infection.

Obstetric textbooks have warned doctors to discourage intercourse in late pregnancy, but have offered little evidence to support this opinion.

A joint study in America and Israel has now produced evidence that there is little to support this view. Doctors are no longer justified in discouraging their patients from continuing sexual activity right through pregnancy.

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