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. 1999 Nov;81(5):893–897. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6690782

Seroprevalence of human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8) in countries of Southeast Asia compared to the USA, the Caribbean and Africa

D Ablashi 1, L Chatlynne 1, H Cooper 1, D Thomas 1, M Yadav 2, A W Norhanom 2, A K Chandana 2, V Churdboonchart 3, S A R Kulpradist 3, M Patnaik 4, K Liegmann 4, R Masood 5, M Reitz 6, F Cleghorn 6, A Manns 7, P H Levine 8, C Rabkin 7, R Biggar 7, F Jensen 9, P Gill 5, N Jack 10, J Edwards 10, J Whitman 1, C Boshoff 11
PMCID: PMC2374301  PMID: 10555764

Abstract

Seroprevalence of HHV-8 has been studied in Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Trinidad, Jamaica and the USA, in both healthy individuals and those infected with HIV. Seroprevalence was found to be low in these countries in both the healthy and the HIV-infected populations. This correlates with the fact that hardly any AIDS-related Kaposi’s sarcoma has been reported in these countries. In contrast, the African countries of Ghana, Uganda and Zambia showed high seroprevalences in both healthy and HIV-infected populations. This suggests that human herpes virus-8 (HHV-8) may be either a recently introduced virus or one that has extremely low infectivity. Nasopharyngeal and oral carcinoma patients from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka who have very high EBV titres show that only 3/82 (3.7%) have antibody to HHV-8, demonstrating that there is little, if any, cross-reactivity between antibodies to these two gamma viruses. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaign

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Footnotes

Correspondence to: DV Ablashi

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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