Hepatitis B virus genotypes among the Jarawas: A primitive Negrito tribe of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

The Jarawas, a classical hunter-gatherer tribe of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, were living in isolation for several centuries. They came into contact with the civilized world recently. Serological studies carried out among them revealed that hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is hyper-endemic....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Archives of virology Vol. 151; no. 8; pp. 1499 - 1510
Main Authors: Murhekar, M. V., Chakravarty, R., Murhekar, K. M., Banerjee, A., Sehgal, S. C.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Wien Springer 01.08.2006
New York, NY Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
ISSN:0304-8608, 1432-8798
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The Jarawas, a classical hunter-gatherer tribe of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, were living in isolation for several centuries. They came into contact with the civilized world recently. Serological studies carried out among them revealed that hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is hyper-endemic. The present study was carried out to investigate the possible origin of HBV infection in Jarawas. Genotyping, RFLP analysis, sequencing, and sequence analysis revealed the prevalence of HBV genotype C, similar to genotype C detected in Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar. In contrast, genotype D was prevalent among other non-Jarawa tribes of the island. These data suggest that HBV infection was transmitted from Indo-China to the Andaman Islands during migration of the Jarawas many centuries ago.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:0304-8608
1432-8798
DOI:10.1007/s00705-006-0737-8