HIV infection in selected populations in Cameroon [letter]

In 1989 in Yaounde Cameroon researchers took sera samples from 1014 pregnant women at the Central Antenatal Clinic 137 patients at the Jamot TB (pulmonary tuberculosis) Clinic and 329 sickle cell anemia patients who had had at least 3 transfusions of nontested blood to determine HIV seroprevalence in the capital city. Laboratory personnel tested the samples using HIV 1/2 ELISA and confirmed all seropositive samples with the Western blot. The ELISA test did not detect any HIV 2 positive samples. .2% of the pregnant women tested HIV 1 positive 3.44% of STD patients none of the sickle cell anemia patients and 2.92% of the TB patients for a total HIV prevalence of 1.06%. The relative risk of a pregnancy woman with an STD or TB acquiring HIV 1 was 18 and 15 times respectively that of a well pregnant woman. The HIV 1 seroprevalence rate in pregnant women in other African countries ranked higher than the corresponding rate in Yaounde. For instance it stood at 3% in Abidjan Cote dIvoire; 2% in Nairobi Kenya; 14% in Kampala Uganda; and 7% in Kinshasa Zaire. Further among TB patients in Bujumbura Burundi and in the Mwanza region in Tanzania it was 54.5% and 25% respectively. Similarly Yaoundes rate among STD patients was lower than that of the Cote dIvoire (35%0 and the Mwanza region in Tanzania (12.5%). Earlier research for all of Cameroon showed that HIV 1 seroprevalence stood around 1% less than it did in this study. This result can be compared to HIV 1 seroprevalence in Bangui Central African Republic 10.7% and Libreville Gabon 1.8%. The data revealed that the HIV epidemic was in its early stages in Cameroon. Since no sickle cell anemia patients was HIV 1 infected indicated that the blood supply was safe. Indeed it should remain safe because donated blood is tested for HIV.