Open AccessPrevalence of human herpesvirus‐8 infection in HIV‐positive patients with and without Kaposi's sarcoma in Hungary
Author(s) -
Szalai Erika,
Gerlei Zsuzsanna,
Szlávik János,
Szládek Györgyi,
Patel Ravi,
Hunyadi János,
Gergely Lajos,
Juhász Attila
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
fems immunology & medical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1574-695X
pISSN - 0928-8244
DOI - 10.1016/j.femsim.2004.08.012
Subject(s) - virology , seroprevalence , serology , biology , polymerase chain reaction , kaposi's sarcoma , antigen , immunofluorescence , nested polymerase chain reaction , herpesviridae , viral disease , recombinant dna , immunology , antibody , virus , human herpesvirus , gene , biochemistry
Human herpesvirus‐8 (HHV‐8) infection of 130 Hungarian HIV‐positive individuals with or without Kaposi's sarcoma was investigated from 158 serum and 122 peripheral blood samples using anti‐latency‐associated nuclear antigen (LANA) indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA), recombinant orf65 and orfK8.1 antigen enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), Western blot assays and orf26 specific nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The overall prevalence of HHV‐8 infection was found to be 31.5% (41/130) among the Hungarian HIV‐positive patients. This seroprevalence rate is 7–11‐fold higher than that of healthy HIV‐negative blood donors in Hungary. The highest prevalence of HHV‐8 infection (36.1%, 35/97) was observed in homo‐ or bisexual patients. Similar to the serologic results, HHV‐8 DNA was not always detectable in all serial samples previously shown to be positive for HHV‐8 DNA.