title: Prevalence of human T-cell lymphotropic virus infections in Germany.
abstract: The extent of human T-cell lymphotropic retrovirus HTLV-I and HTLV-II infections in the general population in central Europe has not been investigated fully. Two hundred forty-eight thousand blood donors from southern Germany were examined serologically for antibodies to the human lymphotropic retroviruses HTLV-I and HTLV-II: 0.021% were confirmed positive and 0.056% were "indeterminate". A limited number of seropositives and "indeterminate" samples were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR): the seropositives were confirmed as positive and 43% of the "indeterminate" samples were PCR-positive. The range of 0.021% HTLV-positives in 248,000 donors, i.e. about two in 10,000 individuals, mirrors closely the published data for the United States.
authors.affiliation: Max v. Pettenkofer Institute, University of Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schätzl
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schwarzfischer
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gathof
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Weise
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Deinhardt
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Von der Helm
mesh_terms: D015480:Deltaretrovirus Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D006800:Deltaretrovirus Infections / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015995:Prevalence
chemical_list: D015480:Deltaretrovirus Antibodies