• Determination of prevalence of Sero- epidemiological of HTLV-1 among adult in Khoy city
  • Ghorban Fatollahzadeh ,1,* Vahid Tanhaei,2
    1. Department of Biology, Urmia Azad University, Urmia, Iran
    2. Department of Biology, Urmia Azad University, Urmia, Iran


  • Introduction: Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1), the first human retrovirus to be discovered, is present in diverse regions of the world, where its infection is usually neglected in health care settings and by public health authorities. Since it is usually asymptomatic in the beginning of the infection and disease typically manifests later in life, silent transmission occurs, which is associated with sexual relations, breastfeeding, and blood transfusions. There are no prospects of vaccines, and screening of blood banks and in prenatal care settings is not universal .therefore, we investigated and determined the seroepidemiological HTLV‐I prevalence in Khoy city.
  • Methods: In this experimental study, 327 serum samples who healthy patients referred to the Diagnostic Laboratory of Qamar Bani Hashim Hospital in Khoy city from Jan 2017 to Jan 2018 were tested for the presence of HTLV antibodies by ELISA and Western blotting tests. Positive samples were tested again with the ELISA method. After than positive serums were tested by western blotting. Comparison of age, sex between the different groups and also a comparison of the relationship between ELISA and western blot bands and any of age, sex results were performed by Chi-square test using the SPSS 18 software and the level of significant differences were placed.
  • Results: Serum samples from three patients were found to be HTLV-I-positive by the ELISA assay and five patients showed a non-specific reaction by this method. These samples were tested by Western blotting assay. All positive results confirmed but in non- specific results, three samples were positive and two samples were negative results.
  • Conclusion: The prevalence of unknown cases among adults in Khoy city was determined lower than endemic regions. Enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is used as a primary screening method and this is usually followed by western blotting (WB). The ELISA assay, without a confirmatory test, has several limitations and affect the accuracy of the results. It is proposed an algorithm that employs two EIAs for screening and then following by western blot to confirm the infection. This strategy reduces costs and improves the accuracy of the diagnosis of HTLV-1.Owing to the prevalence of HTLV‐1 and limitations of the current detection methods, further evaluation of the accuracy of these methods is needed.
  • Keywords: HTLV-1 virus, Elisa, antibody, T cells, Khoy city