San Francisco Chronicle (SF) - The Voice of the West, 901 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94119; - FRIDAY January 5, 1990 Edition: FINAL Section: NEWS Page: A2 Word Count: 677
Charles Petit, Chronicle Science Writer

The viruses are distantly related to HIV, the AIDS virus. So little is known about them that medical authorities are not sure whether the surprising incidence in prostitutes, particularly those who also inject drugs with unsterilized needles, is a serious public health problem.

The viruses typically cause no illness, and other health dangers faced by prostitutes and their customers are far more significant.

Although the dangers from the virus seem fairly low, "nevertheless, control measures, such as the use of condoms to prevent (this virus) and other sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, should be encouraged," the report says.

The overall incidence among prostitutes is 6.7 percent in the eight regions that the scientists studied. Fifteen out of 210 San Francisco prostitutes tested were positive for antibodies to the virus, an almost certain sign of infection.

"We need much more work to learn how extensive it is and how it is spread," said Dr. Rima F. Khabbaz of the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, lead author of the study, which was reported in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. A preliminary report was given in July 1988 at the International Conference on AIDS in Stockholm.

The viruses are called HTLV-1 and HTLV-2. The study reports results for both viruses because tests are unable to discriminate between them, but most concern is on HTLV-1.

Both are "retroviruses," which are passed from person to person in much the same way as AIDS: through sex, sharing of intravenous needles and transfusion with contaminated blood.

Their initials stand for human T-cell lymphotropic viruses. They were identified in the late 1970s by groups led by Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute, who later was credited with co-discovery of the HIV virus.

HTLV-1 is associated, particularly in Japan, with a blood cell cancer called adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma, and elsewhere with a nerve disease called HTLV-1 associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis. The diseases probably take many years to appear after infection, and most infected people apparently never get them at all. The latest study found no evidence that any of the women tested have diseases caused by the viruses.

Most of the prostitutes infected by the virus are also intravenous drug users. In recent years, authorities have reported high rates of infection with one or both of the viruses in IV drug users. One study found it in 40 percent of needle-using addicts in Alameda County.

"We expected a high rate in IV drug users, and many prostitutes use drugs," Khabbaz said. "What was surprising to me is the 2.3 percent rate that we found in women who gave no history of IV drug use."

In Newark, where 15 of 59 women tested positive for the virus, all the prostitutes were recruited from drug abuse clinics.

Incidence in the general population appears to be very low -- only one-fourth of 1 percent of blood donated to the Red Cross tests positive for them.

Rates were higher among blacks, Hispanics and American Indian prostitutes than among white ones. Overall averages were 10.4 percent of prostitutes in Los Angeles, 9.6 percent in New Jersey cities other than Newark, 5.8 percent in Atlanta, 3.7 percent in Miami and 2.2 in Colorado Springs. Tests on 37 women who work in brothels in southern Nevada, where all disease rates are low, found no infections.

"It's a kind of an odd virus," said Judith B. Cohen, one of the study's dozen authors and an epidemiologist at the University of California at San Francisco's AIDS program at San Francisco General Hospital. "The populations where it (HTLV-1) is found don't hang together. It is very common in the Caribbean, Japan and Taiwan, so it is not racial or cultural. There is evidence it is sexually transmitted, but not very efficiently."

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