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Prevalence of antibodies to HTLV in antenatal clinic attenders in South East London
Author(s) -
Hale Antony,
Leung Teresa,
Sivasubramaniam Sivakumar,
Kenny Julie,
Sutherland Sheena
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1096-9071(199707)52:3<326::aid-jmv15>3.0.co;2-g
Subject(s) - medicine , antibody , confidence interval , rubella , serology , virology , immunology , obstetrics , vaccination , measles
The prevalence of antibodies to HTLV in women attending a south east London antenatal clinic between October 1990 and July 1992 was determined using sera referred for routine rubella antibody testing. Samples were screened for HTLV antibody using a modified Fujirebio gel particle agglutination test and reactive sera confirmed by ELISA (Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, IL) and two commercial Western blots (Cambridge Biotech Inc., Rockville, MD, and Diagnostic Biotechnology, Genelab Diagnostics, Louvaine, Belgium). This strategy confirmed the presence of HTLV‐1 antibodies in 12 out of 6,289 sera (0.19%, 95% confidence limits 0.083% to 0.30%) and HTLV‐2 antibodies in 2 (0.03%) sera. Specimens from 8 of 821 (0.97%, 95% confidence limits 0.42% to 1.9%) Afro‐Caribbean women, three of 1,136 (0.26%, 95% confidence limits 0.055% to 0.78%) African women, and one of 3,049 (0.033%, 95% confidence limits 0.006% to 0.18%) Caucasian women were positive for HTLV‐1 antibodies. Sera from Afro‐Caribbean women born in the Caribbean were 7.6 times more likely to be HTLV‐1 antibody positive than sera from Afro‐Caribbean women born in the UK ( P = 0.012). Selective testing of Afro‐Caribbean and African antenatal clinic attenders, in this setting, would have identified 11 of the 12 HTLV‐1 infections at an estimated cost of prevention of HTLV‐1 associated disease of £100,000 per case which is considerably less than the £1.3 million which has been estimated to prevent a case by universal screening of UK blood donors. J. Med. Virol. 52:326–329, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.