Study of the HLA antigen in Arab children with paralytic poliomyelitis.

In 1974 and 1976, two outbreaks of paralytic poliomyelitis occurred in a vaccine-protected infant population in the Gaza Strip. To test the possibility of an increased susceptibility to the disease, the frequency of HLA antigens was studied in 58 of the affected children and compared with 113 control subjects. HLA-AW19 and -B7 were found more frequently in the affected children. These differences were not statistically significant but are consistent with the possibility that patients with the paralytic disease may have an HLA genetic makeup different from that of the rest of the population.