The quest for an infectious agent that may account for cases of Hodgkin's disease (HD) especially in young adults has proven vain until lately. We have recently reported findings that suggested the presence of measles virus (MV) antigens and MV RNA in the tissues of patients with HD. Support for an association between MV and HD has been provided by recent epidemiological findings relating the occurrence of HD to exposure to measles in pregnancy and the perinatal period. We now present further evidence of this putative association based on immunohistochemical, reverse transcriptase -polymerase chain reaction (RT -PCR) and in situ hybridisation studies (ISH) on HD tissues. Biopsies from 82 (54.3%) of our cohort of 154 patients showed a positive immunostain with at least two of the anti-measles antibodies used. Latent membrane protein-1 immunostaining for Epstein -Barr virus was positive in 46 (31.1%) of the patients examined. Reverse transcriptase -PCR and ISH for measles RNA were positive in seven and 10 of 28 patients, respectively. Preliminary clinicopathological associations between MV and HD are noted in this study, but no causal relationship can be claimed at this stage.

HIV infection has been shown to be strongly associated with the development of active tuberculosis. However, its association with leprosy was much less clear. Moreover, seroprevalence of HIV infection among leprosy patients has never been reported in Myanmar. This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of HIV among leprosy patients and the association between HIV infection and types of leprosy in central Myanmar during 2008. A total of 299 leprosy patients, including 242 multibacillary (MB) and 57 paucibacillary (PB) leprosy patients, were enrolled. The overall HIV seroprevalence was 3.7%, with 4.1% in MB leprosy patients and 1.8% in PB leprosy patients. Fifty MB leprosy patients (20.7%) had history of multi-drug therapy (MDT) and 4 of them (8.0%) were HIV infected. Six out of 192 MB leprosy patients without history of MDT were HIV infected (3.1%). MB leprosy cases with history of previous treatment had greater prevalence of HIV infection. Further study should be considered whether HIV infection may cause difficulty to cure leprosy and additional MDT course may require in HIV infected leprosy patients with previous history of MDT.