To the editor
Karen Birmingham's interesting article on the South African AIDS Initiative (Nature Med. 5, 1220; 1999) states that “the predominant HLA types in South Africa are presently unknown.” This ignores a succession of International Histocompatibility Workshops that have provided both HLA serological and molecular typing data for many sub-Saharan African populations.
Readers are referred to a recent article by Hammond and colleagues1, which provides an extensive molecular HLA class I and II data on many South African ethnic groups.
References
Hammond, W.G. et al. HLA in sub-Saharan Africa: 12th International Histocompatibility Workshop SSAF report in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Histocompatibility Workshop and Conference (ed. Charon, D.) 345–353 (1997).
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Sullivan, J. HLA types in South Africa. Nat Med 6, 3 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/71513
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/71513
