Screenings for Chlamydia trachomatis Antigen among HIV and non-HIV Patients with Symptoms of Urogenital Tract Diseases at The Federal Medical Centre Gombe, Nigeria.

Abstract

C. trachomatis a sexually transmitted bacterial pathogen and the leading cause of bacterial sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) world wide can lead to serious complications in women and infants with untreated infections. Symptoms are normally unspecific, as such rapid screening tests with high specificity, though not confirmatory are highly valuable in converting its menace as large number of patients at high risk can be screened within a short period with ease in sample collection and patient management at very low cost. Three hundred urogenital swab samples; including 93 urethral swabs and 207 endocervical swabs were aseptically collected from patients with symptoms of urogenital tract diseases attending federal medical centre Gombe from January to March, 2010. Among them were 33 HIV patients and 267 non-HIV patients. All the swabs were subjected to Chlamydia antigen screening using NovaAE One-Step Chlamydia trachomatis rapid immunochromatography antigen screening testing kits. In general, 11(3.7%) patients were found positive in this study. In the non-HIV patients, 2.6% were positive, with highest frequency of 3.1% recorded at the age group 21-30years. However in the HIV-patients, 12.1% were positive, with the highest frequency of 18.2% recorded at the age group 31-40years. The findings from this work has stressed the importance of rapid screening as a presumptive technique and call for use of more reliable confirmatory testing procedures in the prevention of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), cervical carcinoma and other STDs. We also call for establishing a relationship between Chlamydia trachomatis and HIV infection in the locality.