HLA AND ELEPHANTIASIS REVISITED

A recent case-control study in Indonesia suggested that the course of Brugian filariasis and in particular resistance to the development of elephantiasis was associated with certain HLA class II alleles. In ord er to see whether these data could be confirmed we conducted a similar study in another Indonesian population from South Sulawesi. We could not confirm our earlier results and therefore concluded chat HLA-DR an d -DQ alleles are at least not strongly associated with progression to elephantiasis in Brugian filariasis. The complete data are presented also for anthropological reference purposes.