RESEARCH ARTICLE
Low Prevalence of Common Sexually Transmitted Infections Contrasting with High Prevalence of Mycoplasma Asymptomatic Genital Carriage: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Survey in Adult Women Living in N’Djamena, Chad
Fabrice Compain1, 2, Zita A. Nodjikouambaye3, 4, *, Damtheou Sadjoli3, 5, Ali M. Moussa6, 7, Chatté Adawaye8, Ralph-Sydney M. Bouassa4, 9, 10, Donato Koyalta11, Serge Tonen-Wolyec4, 12, 13, Hélène Péré1, 14, Isabelle Podglajen1, 2, 14, Laurent Bélec9, 14
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2019Volume: 13
First Page: 222
Last Page: 229
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-13-222
DOI: 10.2174/1874285801913010222
Article History:
Received Date: 07/03/2019Revision Received Date: 18/06/2019
Acceptance Date: 21/06/2019
Electronic publication date: 30/08/2019
Collection year: 2019
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
We herein report a cross-sectional study which consecutively enrolled adult women from the community living in N'Djamena, Chad. The aim of the study was to estimate the burden of asymptomatic genital carriage of common curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs) (including Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Mycoplasma genitalium and Trichomonas vaginalis) and genital Mycoplasma spp., as well as to assess their possible associated risk factors.
Methods:
A total of 251 women were consecutively included and screened for common curable STIs as well as for genital mycoplasma carriage by multiplex real-time PCR.
Results:
Only seven (2.8%) women were found to be infected with at least one common STI by multiplex real-time PCR: C. trachomatis, N. gonorrhoeae, M. genitalium and T. vaginalis were recovered from 3 (1.2%), 1 (0.4%), 4 (1.6%) and 1 (0.4%) women, respectively. No sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics could be associated in multivariate analysis with the genital carriage of the four detected common curable STIs. In contrast, the prevalence of genital mycoplasmas was much higher (54.2%) with a predominance of Ureaplasma parvum (42.6% of the total population).
Conclusion:
Our study shows a low prevalence of common STIs in contrast with a high prevalence of mycoplasmas among asymptomatic adult women recruited on a community basis in Chad. These observations highlight the need for etiologic management of STIs relying on PCR-based techniques rather than a syndromic approach in resource-limited countries.