HLA-A and tropical spastic paraparesis: The same protective effect of HLA-A*02 in HAM/TSP, seen in Japanese, has been reported in a small sample of 29 individuals from London, 27 of whom had a Caribbean origin [2], a finding also observed in Brazil [5,6] but not in other populations, such as Afro-Caribbean individuals from Martinique [7], Jamaica [8], Spain [9] and Iran [10,11].