Antibodies to HTLV-I p24 in sera of blood donors, elderly people and patients with hemopoietic diseases in France and in French West Indies

✍ Scribed by Laurence Schaffar-Deshayes; Michel Chavance; Nicole Monplaisir; Anne-Marie Courouce; Antoine Gessain; Sylvie Blesonski; Inez Valette; Nicole Feingold; Jean-Paul Levy

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 488 KB
• Volume: 34
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/ijc.2910340513

✦ Synopsis

Human T-cell lymphomdleukemiavirus type I (HTLV-I) is a type-<: retrovirus originally isolated from patients with leukemia or lymphoma involving mature T lymphocytes. Epidemiological studies have shown that HTLV-I infection occurs not only in leukemic but a h in normal people in at least two areas of the world: the Caribbean basin and the South-West of Japan. We report here the results of a large reroepidemiological study of HTLV-I infection in normal French blood donors, elderly subjects living in institutions and patients with various malignant hemopathies, obtained by the classical HTLV-I p24 radioimmunoassay. We were unable to demonstrate antibodies to HTLV-I in 510 sera from French volunteer blood donors born and living in continental France or in sera from 262 blood donors born in other countries (mainly in Europe and North Africa) and living in contintental France at the time of collection. In contrast, among I3 I sera from blood donors born in French overseas territories (French Guiana, French West Indies,