Low seroprevalence of HTLV-I and HTLV-II in patients with a sexually transmitted disease. Study Group for HTLV and STDs.
To determine the prevalence of HTLV I-II among highly sexually active adults, a seroprevalence study was conducted in Italy between March 1992 and March 1993 among 1506 patients with a newly diagnosed STD. Individuals were tested with an enzyme immunoassay that employs a double viral lysate from HTLV-I and HTLV-II infected cell lines; confirmation and discrimination between HTLV-I and II were performed by a dot-blot immunoassay. One patient (0.07%) was confirmed HTLV-I positive and one (0.07%) HTLV-II positive. The HTLV-I positive was a Romanian woman, and the other was an intravenous drug user. The 0.13% HTLV prevalence observed in this study is intermediate between the 0.034% found among Italian blood donors and the 3.5-6% found among Italian intravenous drug users. These data suggest that there is not a high prevalence of these viruses among Italians with STDs.
Istituto Superiore di Sanità, National AIDS Center, Rome, Italy. suligoi@iss.it
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Decker
D000328:Adult; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D015491:HTLV-II Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D012309:Risk-Taking; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous / Q000453:epidemiology