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

Seroprevalence of HHV-8 has been studied in Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Tha iland, Trinidad, Jamaica and the USA, in both healthy individuals and those infected with HIV. Seroprevalence was found to be low in these countries i n both the healthy and the HIV-infected populations. This correlates with t he fact that hardly any AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma has been reported in these countries, in contrast, the African countries of Ghana, Uganda and Za mbia showed high seroprevalences in bath healthy and HIV-infected populatio ns. This suggests that human herpes virus-8 (HHV-8) may be either a recentl y introduced virus or one that has extremely low infectivity. Nasopharyngea l and oral carcinoma patients from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka who ha ve very high EBV titres show that only 3/82 (3.7%) have antibody to HHV-8, demonstrating that there is little, ii any, cross-reactivity between antibo dies to these two gamma viruses. (C) 1999 Cancer Research Campaign.