A virus tracing back to 1,500-year-old mummies is infecting patients across Australia's Northern Territory, prompting physicians to call for increased efforts to stop infection spread, CNN reports.
The rates of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1, or HTLV-1, infection are surpassing 40 percent among adults in remote regions of central Australia, with indigenous communities being hit the hardest, according to CNN.
Numerous physicians, including the man who discovered the virus roughly forty years ago, are raising awareness of how few efforts there are to prevent, test for and treat HTLV-1. The virus can cause leukemia and lymphoma.
"The prevalence is off the charts" in Australia, said Robert Gallo, MD, co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. Dr. Gallo's laboratory was the first to detect HTLV-1 in 1979.
However, "nobody that I know of in the world has done anything about trying to treat this disease before," Dr. Gallo told CNN. "There's little to almost no vaccine efforts, outside of some Japanese research," he said. "So prevention by vaccine is wide open for research."
HTLV-1 can spread from mother to child through breastfeeding, between sexual partners during unprotected sex and by blood contact, such as through transfusions. The virus is linked to various health issues, such as nervous system diseases and a lung-damaging condition called bronchiectasis. HTLV-1 weakens the immune system and is sometimes considered to be a cousin of HIV.
Dr. Gallo said the reason why HTLV-1 prevalence in an already endemic area is over 40 percent remains unclear. While considering potential reasons, Dr. Gallo questioned whether the HTLV-1 seen among indigenous communities in central Australia could be a variant that transmits more easily. "Nobody knows that either," he said. "That's possible."
Still, Dr. Gallo added, the rest of the world does not need to be concerned about the virus spreading more widely. Likely, "this virus, I don't care what the variation is, will not transmit casually," he said.
"In short, I would not be afraid to use towels, drink out of the same glass, be part of the family, et cetera," of an HTLV-1 positive person, Dr. Gallo added.