Abstract
IntroductionHIV and syphilis during pregnancy remain a public health concern especially in developing countries. Pregnant women attending antenatal clinics sites for the first time between September and December 2011 and who accepted to participate in the study were enrolled. The objective was to estimate the syphilis and HIV infection rate in this population.MethodsA study was conducted in 44 selected ANCs from 12 departments (5 urban and 7 rural). Pregnant women who accepted to participate in the study, attending selected sentinel ANCs sites for the first time between September and December 2011 were enrolled. To detect HIV antibodies, two consecutive ELISA assays were used (Genscreen Ultra HIV Ag/Ac, (BioRad, France) and Enzygnostic Intergral II (Siemens, GMBH, Marbug-Germany). In case of discordant results, the Western blot test II, HIV1 and 2 (Bio-Rad, Marne la Coquette, France) was used as the reference method. The RPR (Bio-Scan, Karnataka, India) test was performed to detect syphilis infection. The RPR positive results were confirmed using the TPHA test (Biotech, Cambridge, UK). Data were analyzed using SPSS 17.0 software.ResultsA total of 2979 pregnant women attending ANCs were enrolled. The global HIV infection rate was estimated to be 3.6% (CI: 95%; 3.0-4.4). As expected, HIV prevalence was significantly higher in women aged above 25 years (4.4% (3.4-5.6), p = 0.026) and those attending urban ANCs (5.04%, p < 0.01). Also, women living in the urban area are more at risk to be infected (5.04 VS 2.38, p < 0.01). The RPR test was positive in 117 pregnant women (3.92%). The risk for syphilis occurrence was significantly higher among the single women compared to the married ones (4.4% VS 2.7%; p < 0.01). It was also estimated that the HIV and syphilis coinfection occurred in 22 cases (0.73%).ConclusionThe prevalence's of syphilis and HIV were relatively low. Marital status and sentinel site location were a risk factor associated with HIV and syphilis infections respectively. Therefore, substantial effort is needed to reinforce prevention strategies in this population to prevent mother-to-child and further horizontal transmissions of these infections.
Highlights
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and syphilis during pregnancy remain a public health concern especially in developing countries
Detection of HIV infection in sentinel sites and National Laboratory of Public Health (NLPH): All samples collected from all 2979 pregnant women were tested for HIV at the antenatal clinics (ANCs) as well as at the NLPH
The majority of study participants were single women (56.3%) living predominantly in urban cities (57.46%), the HIV prevalence observed in this study could be explained by the awareness of pregnant women about the risks of HIV infection following the effort of various fight against acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) programs in the country, in raising awareness about the importance of screening and HIV prevention
Summary
HIV and syphilis during pregnancy remain a public health concern especially in developing countries. Pregnant women who accepted to participate in the study, attending selected sentinel ANCs sites for the first time between September and December 2011 were enrolled. In most developing countries in Africa, epidemiological data on HIV and syphilis are often obtained from sentinel studies on pregnant women in antenatal consultation services in urban or rural areas. This is certainly due to funding constraints and difficulties related to logistics in the case of prevalence studies in the general population [7]. It was decided to conduct a sentinel survey among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics to address the lack of data on STIs in this group. This study aimed to assess the magnitude of HIV and syphilis seroprevalence among antenatal clinics (ANCs) attendees in the RoC
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