Nearly one in four adults in the five states with the most suspected alpha-gal syndrome cases carries antibodies to alpha-gal, according to CDC surveillance published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The estimated combined seroprevalence across Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia was 24.0 percent.
The number that matters more is the comparison. As of 2022, up to 450,000 people in the United States were estimated to have alpha-gal syndrome, which is about 0.14 percent of the population. Antibody positivity in these five states runs roughly 170 times higher than the rate of the illness.
