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Age‐specific prevalence and transmission of TT virus
Author(s) -
Saback Felipe L.,
Gomes Selma A.,
de Paula Vanessa S.,
da Silva Raquel R.S.,
LewisXimenez Lia L.,
Niel Christian
Publication year - 1999
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(199911)59:3<318::aid-jmv10>3.0.co;2-q
Subject(s) - transmission (telecommunications) , medicine , virology , virus , torque teno virus , viral disease , etiology , hepatitis e virus , epidemiology , viremia , polymerase chain reaction , biology , genotype , electrical engineering , gene , engineering , biochemistry
TT virus (TTV) is an unenveloped, single‐stranded DNA virus that was discovered recently in the sera of Japanese patients with posttransfusion hepatitis of unknown etiology. A high prevalence of TTV infection in blood donors of several countries, including Brazil, has been demonstrated. To study the variation in TTV prevalence between different age groups, sera from 223 individuals without liver disease, aged 0–80 years, were tested by the polymerase chain reaction for the presence of TTV DNA. All subjects were inhabitants of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The prevalence increased continuously with age ( P < .001), from 17% among children under the age of 11 years, to 57% in people older than 50 years. To assess vertical transmission, sera from 105 unselected, consecutive parturient women attending a public maternity hospital were paired with cord bloods and examined for the presence of TTV DNA. Thirty‐seven (35%) mothers were found to be TTV infected. Seven cord bloods were also positive, suggesting the possible transplacental transmission of the virus. Furthermore, a direct correlation between TTV viremia and presence of antibodies to the enterically transmissible hepatitis A virus (HAV) was observed in this group of women, with a relative risk of TTV infection of 5.09 (95% confidence interval 0.76–34.03) for women with anti‐HAV, compared with women without. This finding suggested that the fecal‐oral route might be an important route of TTV transmission. J. Med. Virol. 59:318–322, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.