Prevalence and age distribution of human herpesvirus-8 specific antibodiesin Hungarian blood donors

Sera of blood donors were investigated by a peptide ELISA and indirect immu nofluorescence assay to assess the prevalence of HHV-8 infection in the Hun garian population. A 14 amino acid long synthetic oligopeptide from the car boxyterminus of orf65/small virus capsid antigen was used as antigen in the ELISA. ELISA results were confirmed by recombinant orf65 antigen Western b lot. Antibodies to the latent nuclear antigen were detected by the immunofl uorescence assay. Nine of 12 sera obtained from patients with classical Kap osi sarcoma were reactive by ELISA whereas all were positive by immunofluor escence. Four of 482 (0.83%) healthy blood donors had anti-orf65 peptide an tibodies and 17/1089 (1.56%) had antibodies to the latent nuclear antigen. In a group of children ages 1-14 years, antibodies to the latent nuclear an tigen (0/29) were not detected. The prevalence of antibodies to the latent nuclear antigen showed a moderate but significant increase in correlation w ith senescence. In the Kaposi sarcoma patients, the titre of antibodies to the latent nuclear antigen was significantly higher than in the healthy ser opositive donors. The overall HHV-8 seroprevalence by the two assays was 2. 28% (11/482) in the Hungarian blood donor group. J. Med. Virol. 64:526-530, 2001. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.