Prevalence of human T-cell lymphotropic virus infections in Germany.
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.
Schätzl
H
H
Max v. Pettenkofer Institute, University of Munich, Germany.
Schwarzfischer
G
G
Rose
D
D
Gathof
B
B
Weise
W
W
Deinhardt
F
F
Von der Helm
K
K
D015480:Deltaretrovirus Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D006800:Deltaretrovirus Infections / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015995:Prevalence
D015480:Deltaretrovirus Antibodies