First description of HTLV‐1/2 seroprevalence in HIV‐infected inmates in Mozambique

Abstract

No study has yet been conducted to estimate the burden of co-infection of HIV and HTLV-1/2 in inmates in sub-Saharan Africa. To investigate prevalence of co-infection in inmates in Mozambique, a total of 2140 inmates were screened for HIV, of which 515 were HIV seropositive. All HIV seropositive inmates were further screened for HTLV infection, and eight (1.55%) were co-infected. Co-infection was higher in females (3.45% [2/58; CI: 0.42-11.91]) as compared to males (1.35% [6/445; CI: 0.55-3.06]). Early screening of HTLV in prisons is urgently needed in Mozambique in order to improve the care provided to incarcerated individuals, including initiation of ART.

Prevalence and Molecular Epidemiology of Human T-Lymphotropic Virus (HTLV) Infection in People Living With HIV/AIDS in the Pará State, Amazon Region of Brazil

“…Worldwide, few studies have described the epidemiological characteristics of HIV/HTLV coinfection. After dropping from 8% in 1998 (Vallinoto et al, 1998) to the current 1.3% prevalence rate, the Pará state became similar to Mozambique (1.55%) (Augusto et al, 2017), lower than Nigeria (4.9%) (Nasir et al, 2015) but still higher than Sierra Leone, where no cases of HTLV coinfection was observed in PLWHA (Yendewa et al, 2019). In Brazil, this rate is relatively similar to the states of Piaú (1.61%) (de Oliveira et al, 2012), Pernambuco (1.5%) (Ribeiro et al, 2019), and Santa Catarina (1.1%) (Marcon et al, 2019) and just a bit above the State of Goiás (0.8%) (Kozlowski et al, 2016) and below Rio Grande do Sul (2.9%) (Galetto et al, 2014).…”

High frequency of HBV in HIV-infected prisoners in Mozambique

“…This study was conducted as a part of the first national HIV survey on prisoners conducted between July and August 2012 and used the same cohort of patients of our recently published manuscript (Augusto et al, 2017). Prisoners were recruited from 32 prisons situated in seven provinces in Mozambique.…”

“…According to this algorithm, all specimens non-reactive in the first assay were classified as HIV seronegative and all samples repeatedly reactive in both assays were classified as HIV seroreactive. Discordant specimens were repeated using one of the two available assays and if two out of three results were non-reactive the final results was HIV seronegative or if two out of three were reactive the final results was HIV seroreactive (Augusto et al, 2017).…”

HTLV-1, the Other Pathogenic Yet Neglected Human Retrovirus: From Transmission to Therapeutic Treatment

“…During the second half of the 1980s, several HIV-1/HTLV-1 co-infection events were reported in Europe, America, and Africa, especially in hemophiliacs, intravenous drug users, homosexuals and sexual workers [ 134 ]. Nowadays, HTLV-1 and HIV-1 co-infection is mainly investigated in South America and Africa [ 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 ], with prevalence ranging from 0.5 to 10.9% depending on the studies. Differences in regional endemicity, ethnic origin of the population, risk behaviors and study designs could account for such variability.…”