ABSTRACT
The human T-cell leukemia viruses type I (HTLV-I) and type II (HTLV-II) are human retroviruses in the oncornavirus family. This family includes the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the bovine leukemia virus (BLV), and the simian T-cell leukemia virus (STLV) (1). HTLV-I was first isolated from a patient with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (2,3). The virus was quickly associated with human diseases, such as adult T-cell leukemia, leading to the addition of the retrovirus family to the category of human pathogens (2-7). HTLV-II was isolated from a patient with a T-cell variant hairy cell leukemia (8).
