Prevalence of HTLV infection in pregnant women in Spain
- Ana Machuca1,
- Concepción Tuset2,
- Vincent Soriano1,
- Estrella Caballero3,
- Antonio Aguilera4,
- Raul Ortiz de Lejarazu5,
- The Htlv Spanish Study Group
- 1Service of Infectious Diseases, Hospital Carlos III, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
- 2Hospital General Universitario, Valencia
- 3Hospital Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona
- 4Hospital Xeral, Santiago
- 5Hospital Clínico Universitario, Valladolid
- Dr Vincent Soriano, C/ Rafael Calvo 7, 2° A 28010-Madrid, Spain vsoriano{at}dragonet.es
- Accepted 15 May 2000
Abstract
Objective: To estimate the prevalence of HTLV infection among pregnant women in Spain.
Methods: A commercial ELISA incorporating HTLV-I and HTLV-II antigens was used for HTLV antibody screening. Repeatedly reactive samples were further examined by western blot. Moreover, confirmation with PCR was performed when cells were available.
Results: 20 366 pregnant women in 12 different Spanish cities were tested in a 3 year period (July 1996 to August 1999). 32 samples were repeatedly reactive by ELISA, and 10 of them were confirmed as positive by western blot (eight for HTLV-II and two for HTLV-I). In addition, three of 13 women who had an indeterminate western blot pattern yielded positive results for HTLV-II by PCR. All 11 HTLV-II infected women had been born in Spain, and all but one were former drug users. Seven of them were coinfected with HIV-1. One HTLV-I infected woman was from Peru, where HTLV is endemic and where she most probably was infected during sexual intercourse.
Conclusion: The overall prevalence of HTLV infection among pregnant women in Spain is 0.064% (13/20 366), and HTLV-II instead of HTLV-I is the most commonly found variant. A strong relation was found among HTLV-II infection and specific epidemiological features, such as Spanish nationality and injecting drug use. Although HTLV-II can be vertically transmitted, mainly through breast feeding, both the low prevalence of infection and its lack of pathogenicity would not support the introduction of HTLV antenatal screening in Spain.
