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HTLV-1 is endemic in the Northwest among Kolla natives while Buenos Aires city (BA) is considered as non-endemic. In the last decades, migrations to BA have changed from Europeans to Latin-Americans from countries with endemic focus for HTLV-1 infection (Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Brazil, and Chile) and also from different African countries.

Conclusion These results correlate with previous studies conducted among IDUs from New York city, Vietnam and Southern Europe where HTLV-IIb was more frequently found. In contrast, IIa is found among IDUs from other regions of the USA, Europe and Brazil. This is the first time in which subtype b is described in Argentina among IDUs. Its presence may be due to migrations of aborigines to big cities and the introduction of drugs in this population. Lately, there was also a high rate of migration and tourism to Argentina, especially from southern Europe and USA, possibly contributing to the spread of HTLV-IIb in our country. Interestingly, the IIa sample described here was found to be related with Brazilian aborigine sequences in contrast to the previous Argentinian IDU which was closer to African isolates. from 2006 International Meeting of The Institute of Human Virology Baltimore, USA. 17–21 November, 2006

HLA class 1 alleles HLA-A*24,*26 and HLA-B*07,*61 were associated to susceptibility for HTLV-1 infection.While HLA-A*02 was associated to protection to HAM/TSP, HLA-B*07 was associated to susceptibility for disease. Alleles HLA-A*02 and HLA-B*27,*40,*48 were described in aboriginal populations of Russia genetically related to Andean aborigines. This study analyzed the association of HLA with susceptibility to HTLV-1 or -2 infections.

Although the detection of HTLV antibodies became mandatory in Argentinean blood banks since 2005, there is no recommendation on how to perform the screening. As a consequence, there is a variable number of HTLV false positives depending on the kit used. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the performance of six commercial screening tests available currently for the initial diagnosis of HTLV-1/2 infection in South America. The positive panel included 14 HTLV-1 and 13 HTLV-2 samples confirmed by WB (HTLV-1/2 MP Diagnostics). The negative panel included 233 samples analysed with Architect (n=47), Diapro (n=46), MP (n=45), Murex (n=47) and Serodia (n=48), collected in 5 different institutions in a period of one up to 10 consecutive days. All of them were confirmed by n-PCR. The sensitivity for all HTLV diagnostic kits was 100.0%. The most specific test was Serodia (PA) (99,1%; 2/233), followed by the ELISAs: Celquest (98.3%, 4/233), Murex (97.8%; 5/233), MP and Architect (97.4%; 6/233), and Diapro (93,1%; 16/233). According to this data, 2 to 16 blood units out of 233 should have been discarded due to false positive results in a period of 10 days. This data must be considered when choosing the assays, not only to obtain an optimal efficiency on HTLV-1/2 diagnosis, to increase the number of potential blood units and to decrease the circulation of anxious individuals without a final result, but also to lower the overall cost-benefits of the diagnosis in the health care system.