The results from the previous studies clearly confirm the poor efficacy of the lamivudine therapy in woodchucks [108, 112, 124] . A new strategy evaluated the potency of an entecavir treatment and increased number of immunizations [Lu et al., unpublished results] . Chronically WHV-infected woodchucks were pretreated with the entecavir for 21 weeks; 10 weeks in a daily and 11 weeks in a weekly manner. During the weekly administration of the drug, one group of animals received 6 immunizations with two-plasmid DNA vaccine (pWHsIm and pWHcIm),the second group received combination of DNA vaccine together with purified WHV core and surface antigens, and the third group remained untreated. The entecavir therapy resulted in rapid and significant decrease of the viral load and WHsAg levels in serum of the animals. The effect was especially pronounced in animals that additionally received vaccines. In woodchucks treated only with entecavir, the increase of viremia was observed already during the weekly administration or immediately after withdrawal of the drug. By contrast, in both groups of animals, that were immunized with DNA or DNA/proteins vaccines, the delay before the rebound of WHV replication was significantly prolonged. In addition, entecavir treatment was effective to suppress WHV replication and enhanced the induction of WHV-specific T cell responses. An increased CTL activity was detected in individual woodchucks after DNA or DNA/proteins vaccinations. Moreover, two animals completely eliminated the virus from the blood and were WHV DNA negative in the liver [Lu et al., unpublished results] .