HTLV-1 Disease

Dear Colleagues,

Year 2018 was a tumultuous year for people who live with the human oncovirus, HTLV-1. Though the virus was discovered in 1980 by Robert Gallo, people have been suffering from HTLV-1 diseases for thousands of years. However, the discovery of the extraordinarily high prevalence rates as well as the associated morbidity and mortality of this blood borne and sexually transmitted virus amongst one of our culturally richest and oldest living Indigenous ancestral people shocked the scientific and general population world-wide in 2018.

As a result, for the first time in the history of HTLV-1, patient representatives, scientists and clinicians submitted the WHO HTLV-1 Open Letter to Dr.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to adopt HTLV as a WHO health topic, in order to work towards the eradication of HTLV-1, and to provide information, guidance and technical support to countries and communities, particularly to those most affected by the diseases.

This action resulted in a process of engaging with WHO member-states and WHO, prompting awareness that despite the significant morbidity and mortality caused by HTLV-1, many people worldwide still believe that HTLV-1 is a harmless virus. We know that about 1000 people die every year of Adult T cell Leukemia (ATL) in Japan alone. Now is the time to rephrase the problem at hand: Can one catch Adult T cell Leukemia (ATL) or HTLV-1 associated myelopathy (HAM)? Just as anal, cervical, vulval, penile and laryngeal cancers are caused through the acquisition of human papilloma virus, we believe that one can catch ATL and HAM. Therefore, we propose to consider ATL and HAM as preventable communicable diseases, caused by HTLV-1.

Pursuing research into the fundamental understanding of HTLV-1 biology is vital for the development of effective transmission prevention strategies, treatment and cure.

To this end we wish to dedicate this issue to: pathogenicity, transmission, prevention of HTLV-1.

We invite you to consider contributing to this special HTLV-1 Disease issue by focusing on biomedical discoveries made or unmet basic science needs addressing one or several of the following questions:

• What is the evidence that HTLV-1 causes morbidity?
• What is the evidence that HTLV-1 increases mortality?
• How can we better equip our HTLV-1 transmission prevention and or treatment tool-box?

This Special Issue is an important step towards the eradication of HTLV-1 by compiling our current basic-science intervention knowledge to inform our readers as well as the participants of the WHO HTLV-1 Global Consultation, who will decide if HTLV should be adopted by the WHO as a Health Topic.

We are looking forward to hearing from you.

Dr. Fabiola Martin
Dr. Chloé Journo
Guest Editors

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