Antibodies to HTLV‐I in Nigerian blood‐donors, their relatives and patients with leukaemias, lymphomas and other diseases

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Abstract
Antibodies to HTLV‐I have been detected in sera from 15 (2.0%) of 736 adult blood‐donors in Nigeria, in 4 (20.0%) of 20 patients with chronic lymphatic leukaemia, 3 (10.0%) of 30 with non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma, one of 12 with Burkitt's lymphoma and one of 7 with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. The frequency of positivily was higher (3.6%) in the blood‐donors from the guinea and wooded savanna of northern Nigeria than in those from the rain‐forest and mangrove swamps of southern Nigeria (1.8% in Lagos and 0.7% in Calabar). Two of the 3 seropositive patients with lymphoma had clinical presentation and courses similar to those of Japanese and Caribbean patients with adult T‐cell leukaemia/lymphoma.