Background: Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) including immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections and syphilis are prevalent in developing countries; they are highly prevalent among pregnant women in Africa and cause significant maternal and perinatal morbidity. STIs and other reproductive tract infections (RTIs) have been associated with a number of adverse pregnancy outcomes including abortion, stillbirth, preterm delivery, low birth weight, postpartum sepsis, neonatal pneumonia, neonatal blindness and congenital infection. The control of these diseases, especially in pregnancy, is thus a priority, particularly in resource-poor settings where they are prevalent. Seeing the magnitude of the disease, the MDGs planned goals and aimed at reducing HIV prevalence by half among pregnant women aged 15-24 years at the end of 2015.
Methodology: This was a cross sectional study conducted from August to October 2014 in Shinyanga urban district among 200 pregnant women aged from 15 years to 45 years attending ANC at Kambarage HC. Participants were enrolled consecutively after consenting and interviewed using standard structured questionnaire to obtain information regarding potential risk factors. Blood sample was collected and screened for syphilis using rapid test which was used to detect antigen to Treponema pallidum, for a participant whose blood sample tested positive was referred to the doctor in charge for management HIV was tested using Alere Determine HIV-1/2 for detection of antibodies to HIV-1 and HIV-2 in human serum and positive sample was confirmed by the Trinity Biotech Uni-Gold HIV test, and those who were positive for HIV were also given further management as per guideline for HIV management in pregnancy by being referred to Care and Treatment Clinic of Kambarage HC. Data was coded, entered, cleaned, validated and analyzed using IBM SPSS software version 20.
Results: A total of 200 pregnant women were recruited during the study, the mean age of the study subjects was 24.7 years (SD=5.4). The youngest respondent in the study was 17 years old with the oldest respondent being 43 years old. The seroprevalence of syphilis was 5% and that of HIV was 3% while the seroprevalence of co infection with HIV in syphilis positive was 20%.
Conclusion and recommendation: This study found that Shinyanga urban district in northwestern Tanzania has both a high syphilis seroprevalence and a high seroprevalence of 5%, however the HIV seroprevalence was low as compared to other studies done in Tanzania and other countries. Based on syphilis prevalence there is a need of doing a large sample survey enabling to do multivariate analysis to determine factors associated with co infection also screening for syphilis should be done parallel to the HIV screening in pregnancy, and more education on syphilis should be provided.
Wurzburg Road 35, BMC Premises, Post Code: 33102: P. O Box 1464, Mwanza – Tanzania: Phone: +255 28 298 3384: Fax: +255 28 298 3386: Email: vc@bugando.ac.tz : www.bugando.ac.tz