Regional variation in prevalence of antibody against human T-lymphotropic virus types I and III in Kenya, East Africa
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Date
1985-06Author
Biggar, RJ
Johnson, BK
Oster, C
Sarin, PS
Ocheng, D
Tukei, P
Nsanze, H
Alexander, S
Bodner, AJ
Siongok, TA
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The prevalence of antibodies against HTLV-III and -I was studied among populations of 6 distinctly different regions of Kenya, an equatorial African country in which AIDS has rarely been observed. Overall, 21% of subjects had ELISA reactions suggesting the presence of antibody against HTLV-III. The frequency of HTLV-III antibodies was highest among the Turkana people (50%) and lowest among the Masai (8%). Prevalence increased with age but was not related to sex. The pattern of ELISA-detected antibody against HTLV-I was similar. The specificity of these antibodies was supported by Western blot analysis of a subset of sera with high and low ELISA ratios, in which 66% and 73% of those with ELISA ratios considered positive (= greater than 5.0 in this study) also had a profile of bands consistent with HTLV-III and HTLV-I respectively. The antibodies detected were not cross-reactive between HTLV-III and HTLV-I on Western blot analysis. In a series of subjects with various parasitic and infectious diseases, patients with idiopathic splenomegaly and with schistosomiasis had a high proportion of antibodies against both HTLV-III and HTLV-I. This survey shows that reactivity in the ELISA HTLV-III and HTLV-I assays are common among Kenyans but vary considerably by region
URI
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2989191http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/31195
Citation
Int J Cancer. 1985 Jun 15;35(6):763-7.Publisher
University of Nairobi, Department of Medicine
Collections
- Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) [10387]