LACK OF ASSOCIATION BETWEEN PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY AND HTLV-I INFECTION IN WEST-AFRICA - EPIDEMIOLOGIC, SEROLOGICAL AND NERVE BIOPSY STUDY

Patients (n = 1166) with various neurological disorders hospitalized i n Dakar, Abidjan, Lome and Ouagadougou were examined prospectively ove r a 42-month period. Seropositivity for HTLV-I alone was found to be 1 .8%, which is comparable to that estimated for the general population in Africa. Eighteen of the patients with TSP and only 5 with PN were H TLV-I positive, but co-infections were found in 30-40% of cases. Discr ete and unspecific lesions were observed on light and electron microsc opic examination of peripheral nerve biopsies from 11 patients. Since spastic paraparesis emerges as the disorder containing the largest num ber of HTLV-I-positive individuals, it may be premature to conclude th at HTLV-I is a causal agent in PN. Nevertheless, their rarity and the frequency of retroviral co-infections distinguish these cases of Afric an HTLV-I-associated myelopathy from comparable cases observed in othe r parts of the world.