Lack of Evidence of HTLV-III Endemicity in Southern Africa

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Abstract
To the Editor: Recently, there have been reports of AIDS from central Africa.1 2 3 4 Clumeck et al.4 have suggested that the disease there may signify that the causative agent of AIDS is endemic in Africa. Evidence is also accumulating implicating HTLV-III as the etiologic agent of AIDS. If this is the case, one can expect to find antibodies against HTLV-III in a certain proportion of the population. With this in mind we conducted a survey to determine the relative prevalence of antibodies to HTLV-III in various population groups as well as indigenous primates in southern Africa, using an indirect immunofluorescence assay . . .