[Hepatitis (Hep-Net) competence network].

In Germany almost 1 million people are affected by chronic viral hepatitis. Despite of the improved therapy options for the treatment of hepatitis B and C, several questions regarding epidemiology, pathophysiology and therapy are still unclear. Vaccines against hepatitis C and D viruses are still not available. Additionally, many patients and their relatives need information about infectiosity, course of the disease and therapy options. By the integration of doctors' practices and patient advocacy groups, Hep-Net aims at the educational information on the infection and tries to give access to qualified therapy strategies for all patients with an indication for therapy. After 18 months the Hep-Net Homepage already shows more than 9000 hits per day. Consultation hours via telephone, email-services and numerous activities in cooperation with the Deutsche Leberhilfe e.V. are highly frequented. In the Hep-Net study-house high-standard clinical studies with first successful results are centrally organized. Further, basic questions in the fields of epidemiology, virology and immunology are processed in cooperative research projects within the network.