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Edward Tabor, MD
National Cancer Institute Bethesda, Md

Robert J. Gerety, MD, PhD
Biogen Cambridge, Mass

James Cairns, FRCS Ed
St Francis' Hospital Katete, Zambia

Anne C. Bayley, FRCS
University of Zambia Lusaka

JAMA. 1990;264(6):691-692.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

It has been suggested that the worldwide epidemics of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) could have originated in Africa^1,2 and that HTLV-I was carried to the endemic region in southern Japan from Africa in the 16th century.² However, few serological studies of stored serum samples have been conducted to evaluate these suggestions. We conducted a study to determine whether antibodies to HIV-1 (anti-HIV-1) or HTLV-I (anti-HTLV-I) were present in Zambia before (in 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979) and at the beginning (in 1981) of the recognized worldwide epidemics of these viruses.

Study.—

Three hundred forty-nine serum samples, stored at—20°C, were obtained from 226 apparently healthy villagers (from five rural villages located 500 km east of Lusaka; preinoculation samples in a hepatitis B vaccine trial in 1981)^3,4 and from 123 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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