ABSTRACT
Reports of an 18-fold higher incidence of schizophrenia among second-generation Afro-Caribbeans, and especially Jamaican migrants in the United Kingdom were soon called "an epidemic of schizophrenia," with the inference that a novel virus, likely to be perinatally transmitted, was a possible etiological agent. This intriguing observation led us to explore a possible link with human T-cell lymphotropic virus type one (HTLV-I), because it is a virus that is endemic in the Caribbean Island, is perinatally transmitted, known to be neuropathogenic, and the cause of a chronic myelopathy (tropical spastic paraparesis/HTLV-I associated myelopathy. We therefore examined inpatients as the Bellevue Mental Hospital, Kingston, Jamaica and did standard serological tests for retroviruses HTLV-I and HTLV-II and HIV-I and HIV-II on 201 inpatients who fulfilled ICD-9 and DSM III-R criteria for schizophrenia. Our results produced important negative data, since the seropositivity rates for HTLV-I, the most likely pathogen, were no greater than the seropositivity range for HTLV-I carriers in this island population, indicating the HTLV-1 and the other retroviruses tested do not play a primary etiological role in Jamaican schizophrenics.
Subject(s)
Retroviridae/isolation & purification , Schizophrenia/virology , Adult , Antibodies, Viral/blood , Female , HIV-1/isolation & purification , HIV-2/isolation & purification , Human T-lymphotropic virus 1/isolation & purification , Human T-lymphotropic virus 2/isolation & purification , Humans , Immunoglobulin G/blood , Incidence , Jamaica/epidemiology , Jamaica/ethnology , Male , Middle Aged , Schizophrenia/epidemiology , Social Class , United Kingdom/epidemiologyABSTRACT
Reports of an 18-fold higher incidence of schizophrenia among second-generation Afro-Caribbeans, and especially Jamaican migrants in the United Kingdom were soon called an epidemic of schizophrenia, with the inference that a novel virus, likely to be perinatally transmitted, was a possible etiological agent. This intriguing observation led us to explore a possible link with human T-cell lympotropic virus type one (HTLV-I), because it is a virus that is endemic in the Caribbean Island, is perinatally transmitted, known to be neuropathogenic, and the cause of a chronic myelopathy tropical spastic paraparesis/HTLV-I associated myelopathy. We therefore examined inpatients as the Bellevue Mental Hospital, Kingston, Jamaica and did standard serological tests for retroviruses HTLV-I and HTLV-II and HIV-I and HIV-II on 201 inpatients who fulfilled ICD-9 and DSM II-R criteria for schizophrenia. Our results produced important negative data, since the seropositivity rates for HTLV-I, the most likely pathogen, were no greater than the seropositivity range for HTLV-I carriers in this island population, indicating the HTLV-I and the other retroviruses tested do not play a primary etiological role in Jamaican schizophrenics(AU)