The Liver Meeting 2022 of the American Association for the Study of The Liver (AASLD) was held on 4-8 November 2022 in Washington, DC, USA. 

During the conference, a joint networking session was organized by AASLD and the Conference on Liver Disease in Africa (COLDA) organizing committee on November 6, 2022, to present the results of hepatitis research in Africa.  

Serge Ouoba, a Doctoral student at the Department of Epidemiology, Infectious Disease Control and Prevention, Hiroshima University, was invited as a speaker at this session to present a study conducted by Prof. Junko Tanaka on HBV infection in pregnant women in rural Burkina Faso, West Africa.  

This study showed that HBeAg does not accurately predict high HBV DNA in genotype E, which is predominant in West Africa, and that point-of-care viral load tests are required for Africa.