Environmental Factors Influence the Rate of Human Herpesvirus Type 8 Infection in a Population with High Incidence of Classic Kaposi Sarcoma

High prevalence of human herpesvirus type 8 (HHV-8) in-fection has been reported on the island of Sardinia. Among emigrants from Sardinia, rates of HHV-8 infection are lower than they are in Sardinia and are similar to those observed in the local population. Thus, environmental factors seem to play a relevant role in affecting the prevalence of HHV-8 infection. Sardinia, a Mediterranean island west of Italy’s mainland, is a region with one of the highest incidences of classic Kaposi sarcoma (KS) in the world [1]. For geographical and historical reasons, a very limited amount of immigration has been re-ported in Sardinia, thus contributing to clustering on the island of some genetic traits frequently found in the Sardinian pop-ulation. Since the identification of human herpesvirus type 8 (HHV-8) as the etiologic agent of KS, many epidemiologica