Prevalence of anti-hantavirus antibodies in patients with hypertransaminemia in Madrid (Spain).

The hantaviruses are involved in a number of clinical syndromes of different severity and prognosis. Hantaviruses are widely distributed around the world, but the spectrum of illnesses they cause outside recognized endemic areas is unclear. A retrospective analysis was performed to detect anti-hantavirus antibodies in the serum of patients with hypertransaminemia of unknown etiology and in that of healthy members of the general population of Madrid (Spain). Antibodies were detected by indirect immunofluorescence and enzyme immunoassay; positive results were confirmed by Western blotting. Of the 182 patients with hypertransaminemia, 11 (6%) were positive for anti-hantavirus IgG antibodies; Western blotting using recombinant Puumala virus N antigen showed one of these patients to have hantavirus-specific IgM antibodies. Among the 146 healthy subjects from the general population, 3 (2%) were positive for anti-hantavirus IgG antibodies. These results show that anti-hantavirus antibodies are more commonly detected in patients with hypertransaminemia than in healthy people.