Department of - Instituut voor Tropische Geneeskunde

Human T Lymphotropic Virus type 1
(HTLV-1) in Peru
HTLV-1 is a viral infection that is transmitted by
prolonged breast feeding, transfusion of infected
blood or sexual contact. Although most infections
are asymptomatic, a minority of the infected subjects
develop serious complications, including a debilitating
neurological syndrome (tropical spastic paraparesis) or
aggressive leukemias or lymphomas. Some patients are
also sensitive to infectious complications, such as scabies,
strongyloidiasis and onychomycosis. HTLV-1 infection is
prevalent in West Africa, Japan, the Caribbean and the
northern Andes region.
Over the last two decades, Eduardo Gotuzzo, director of
the Institute of Tropical Medicine of Lima, has established
a clinical and epidemiological cohort of 1,500 HTLV-1
subjects, and their family members. This is one of the
largest cohorts in the world.
Tine Verdonck works on HTLV and other infectious
diseases with Prof. Eduardo Gotuzzo at the Institute
of Tropical Medicine Caeyetano Heredia in Lima, Peru.
She is also a key player in the collaborative capacity
strenghtening programme.
Highlight
The ITM’s Unit of Virology collaborates in studies
aiming to understand why only some of the infected
subjects develop the disease and why the disease
expression is clustered in three different syndromes,
i.e. an inflammatory neurological one, an infectious
one or a neoplastic one. The project is part of the
ITM DGDC collaborative programme between the
Antwerp and Lima institutes and is co-funded by the
Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR). Other partners
are the Medical Genetic Department of the University
of Antwerp (Prof. Van Camp and Dr. Van Laer) and the
Catholic University of Leuven (Prof. Van Damme). In
Peru, Dr. Tine Verdonck, Dr. Daniel Clarck, Dr. Ivan Best
and Dr. Michael Talledo are the main investigators
working with Prof. Gotuzzo. Several clinical trainees and
master students in molecular biology are also involved
trained in the project. Over a period of 4 years, we will
collect clinical, epidemiological and biological data on
800 HTLV-1 infected subjects. By the end of 2007, we
had reached our mid-term target of 400 subjects. Tine
Verdonck analysed the clinical and epidemiological
features and convincingly demonstrated an increased
risk for severe tuberculosis in HTLV-1 infected subjects.
Together with the other researchers she published a
prestigious review in the “Lancet Infectious Diseases” and
papers in several other international journals. She will
defend her PhD thesis in 2008 at the Antwerp University.
Ivan Best analysed the T cell function in the patients and
observed signs of spontaneous activation and increased
activity of regulatory T cells in patients with neurological
complications. He successfully defended his PhD thesis
at the Caeyetano Heredia University in Lima. Ms. Vanessa
Adaoui, together with Dr. Clarck, succesfuly developed
an in-house assay test to measure the proviral load.
Michael Talledo observed a genetic association between
“Andean origin” and risk for neurological complications.
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