Increasing Probability of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HHV-8 with Increasing Maternal Antibody Titer for HHV-8

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Abstract
We reported previously on mother-to-child transmission of human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) in South Africa.1 Stored serum samples obtained from 107 women (60 were black, 24 white, 5 Asian, and 18 other) and 112 of their children between the ages of 6 months and 14 years (61 girls, 50 boys, and 1 unknown) were tested for HHV-8: 42 percent (8 of 19) of the children whose mothers were seropositive for HHV-8 were themselves seropositive, whereas only 1 percent (1 of 93) of the children whose mothers were seronegative for HHV-8 were seropositive.1 To assess the effect of maternal titer of antibody to HHV-8 on mother-to-child transmission, the serum samples from the mothers who were HHV-8–seropositive were retested in a blinded fashion at doubling dilutions starting at 1:100, with the use of an immunofluorescence assay described elsewhere.2 The proportion of children who were seropositive for HHV-8 increased in relation to their mothers' titer of HHV-8 antibody from 1 percent if the mother's titer was less than 1:100 to 50 percent if the mother's titer was 1:25,600 or greater (P for trend <0.001) ( Table 1 ). A high antibody titer probably indicates a large number of circulating cells infected with HHV-8 (i.e., a high viral load). These results therefore suggest that a high viral load of HHV-8 may increase the likelihood of transmission of the virus from mothers to their children.