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

ABSTRACT

Seroprevalence of HHV-8 has been studied in Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Trinidad, Jamaica and the USA, in both healthy individuals and those infected with HIV. Seroprevalence was found to be low in these countries. In contrast, the African countries of Ghana, Uganda and Zambia showed high seroprevalences in both healthy and HIV-infected populations. This suggests that human herpes virus-8 (HHV-8) may be either a recently introduced virus or one that has extremely low infectivity. Nasopharyngeal and oral carcinoma patients from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka who have very high EBV titres to show that only 3/82 (3.7 percent) have antibody to HHV-8, demonstrating that there is little, if any, cross-relativity between antibodies to these two gamma viruses. (AU)