Human T-Lymphotropic Virus (HTLV)

Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Viruses (HTLV) type 1 and type 2 are sexually transmitted infection and retrovirus which causes a chronic lifelong infection in humans transmitted through breast feeding, sexual contacts and contaminated cellular blood components.  The most common clinical presentations include general immune imbalance, making individuals more susceptible to infections; uveitis; dermatitis and pneumonitis. HTLV-1 has been more often associated with human disease, and is the causative agent of a form of blood cancer (adult T-cell leukaemia or lymphoma, called ATL) and of a progressive disease of the nervous system (HTLV-1-associated myelopathy, or HAM, also known as tropical spastic paraparesis (TSP)) (Gov.uk, 2026).


  • An estimated 5 to 10 million people were living with HTLV-1 infection
  • Endemic in the Caribbean, South America, Romania, Iran, much of Africa, Japan, Melanesia,  indigenous populations of Australia and native Americans (especially for HTLV-2)
  • It affects more women than men, though the reasons for this are not well understood.
  • There is no effective treatment for HTLV-1 and emphasis is placed on detection and prevention. 
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Our collaboration with FMUSP

Accurate diagnosis is crucial for counselling infected persons and prevention of secondary transmissions. In spite of the development of excellent serological screening assays, many cases of indeterminate and untyped results are still regularly reported and their infection status remain uncertain.


To address the need of more precise diagnosis, INFYNITY BIOMARKERS has developed a new cutting-edge in-vitro diagnostic confirmation test, named Multi-HTLV, which has been validated on a large panel of HTLV samples. Development was conducted in collaboration with the University of São Paulo School of Medicine (FMUSP), notably as Brazil has the highest absolute number of HTLV-1-infected individuals worldwide.


The multiparametric nature of the assay opens new avenues to study specific serological signatures of each patient, follow the evolution of infection, and explore utility for HTLV disease prognosis.

The Multi-HTLV Kit

Multi-HTLV is a multiplex immunoassay allowing powerful detection of antibodies against HTLV through combination of a set of selective and validated virus-specific antigens in a blood sample. The assay is a high-resolution multiplex ELISA assay for research use only (RUO), enabling the simultaneous detection and characterization of antibodies against 6 distinct HTLV antigen specificities.


Designed for both confirmatory testing and typing (HTLV-1 and HTLV-2), Multi-HTLV provides a complete antibody reactivity profile and helps confirm HTLV infection by identifying whether it is an HTLV-1 or HTLV-2 infection. The newly developed assay is very competitive with currently used confirmatory assays and reduces considerably the number of indeterminate results, increasing the reliability of HTLV diagnostics and strain typing thanks to a high precision mathematical algorithm.

Advantages of the kit

  • Comprehensive serological profiling: Generates an individual serological signature by simultaneously measuring antibody reactivity against 6 distinct HTLV antigens.
  • Low sample volume: Requires only a small volume of serum/plasma (~5 µL) to generate a comprehensive serological HTLV typing.
  • Simplified data analysis: automated processing of multiplex results, facilitating interpretation and reducing manual data handling.