title: Prevalence of HSV-2 antibodies among STD clinic patients in Tanzania.
abstract: Patients attending a referral sexually transmissible diseases clinic at Muhimbili Medical Centre in Dar-es-Salaam during the period 1989 to 1993 were examined for herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) antibodies. An ELISA technique, using glycoprotein G of HSV-2 as antigen, was used to test 294 patients' sera. Of these, 126 sera were HSV-2 positive, while 168 were negative, yielding an overall HSV-2 prevalence of 42.9%. Sixty-three per cent of the women and 35.5% of the men were HSV-2 positive. Seropositivity rose from 8.7% in the youngest men to 61.5% in the oldest male age group, while even the youngest women aged 20 or less had an HSV-2 prevalence of 55.6%. There was a significant positive association between HIV and HSV-2 seropositivity (P=0.0006), most pronounced among the youngest women. There was no over-representation of HSV-2 positivity among patients with genital ulcer disease, indicating that other causes of this disease could be more common than HSV-2 in Tanzania.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Haukeland Hospital and University of Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Langeland
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Haarr
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mhalu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D015497:HIV-1; D006558:Herpes Genitalis / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D013636:Tanzania / Q000453:epidemiology; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins; C045464:glycoprotein G, herpes simplex virus type 2