Information is very scarce on the prevalence of hepatitis-B virus (HBV) infection among blood donors and patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Nigeria. Hepatitis-B surface antigen (HBsAg) ELISA was used to determined the prevalence of HBsAg among 175 blood donors (aged 20-40 years) and Key words: hepatitis B virus -human immunodeficiency virus -blood donor -prevalenceHepatitis B virus (HBV) is the most common cause of serious liver infection in the world. It is estimated that worldwide more than two billion people have been infected by HBV and 350 million people have chronic infection (Drosten et al. 2004). The HBV, highly contagious and relatively easy to transmit from one infected individual to another, by blood-to-blood contact, during birth, unprotected sex, and by sharing needles, has relatively higher prevalence in the tropics (Finlayson et al. 1999).Nigeria is classified among the group of countries highly endemic for HBV infection. About 75% of the Nigerian population is reportedly likely to have been exposed to HBV at one time or the other in their life (Sirisena et al. 2002). There is a high level of occurrence of blood demanding health conditions in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria the increase in road accidents, pregnancy-related hemorrhage, armed robbery attacks, and violent events, increase the possibility of the transmission of HBV (and other blood-borne pathogens) through contaminated blood as reported by United Nations System in Nigeria (UNSN 2001).Coinfection with HBV and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a rapidly growing public health concern. The sub-Saharan Africa has been most severely affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic with almost 9% of its adult (2003). The report also indicated that some parts of the country were worse affected than others but no state is unaffected. All the states of Nigeria have general population epidemics of over 1% with some areas having prevalence higher than 10%. Furthermore, the infection cuts across both sexes and all age groups but youths between the ages 20-29 years are more infected. According to UNAIDS (2000), the HIV prevalence rate among Nigerian girls (15-24 years) by the end of 1999, was in the range of 4.35 to 5.89 compared to boys to 1.68 to 3.35 in the same age range.Information is very scarce on the prevalence of HBV among healthy blood donors and patients with HIV infection in Nigeria. As a result of this dearth of information, guidelines, and other adequate information on the preventive and control measures are essentially lacking in many settings in Nigeria. Our objective therefore was to determine the prevalence of HBV infection among voluntary blood donors and HIV-infected individuals using HBsAg serological assay, with the view to establishing effective guidelines on the prevention and control of HBV infection in this part of the globe.This study was part of preliminary investigation leading to advanced research on HBV and HIV coinfection in Nigeria.

The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to examine sera of 104 Key words: seroprevalence -Toxocara -enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay -Nigeria Toxocara canis is a saprozoonotic parasite capable of infecting man. Infection in man follows the ingestion of embryonated eggs of the parasite with subsequent hatching and migration of the larvae in his tissues. The persistence or migration of T. canis in the tissues of man causes visceral larva migrans, VLM (Beaver 1969).The diagnosis and confirmation of human toxocariasis rely heavily upon serological tests. In this respect the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) developed by Cypess et al. (1977) and modified by Glickman et al. (1978) has been found to be very useful in different parts of the world (De Savigny et al. 1979, Glickman et al. 1979, Matsumura & Endo 1983, Garcia et al. 1989, Abo-Shehada et al. 1992, Hakim et al. 1992, Chomel et al. 1993, Holland et al. 1995 because of its high sensitivity and specificity in the routine diagnosis of human toxocariasis.The purpose of this paper is to report on the first serological diagnosis of human toxocariasis in Nigeria and the importance of the disease as a public health problem in the tropical environment. MATERIALS AND METHODSSerum samples -The sera of 104 subjects comprising of 54 males and 50 females, aged between 2 and 24 years were collected between June 28 and July 4 1996. Twenty two of the subjects (15 This work was supported in part by the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Jos, research grant no. UJ/ FNS/RG/94-95/13. + Corresponding author. E-mail: ajayi j @ unijos.edu.ng Received 6 April 1999 Accepted 11 November 1999 males and 7 females) were inpatients of the Jos University Teaching Hospital, 58 (29 males and 29 females) were pupils of the Jos University Primary School, 15 (5 males and 10 females) were students of the Jos University Demonstration Secondary School, and 9 (5 males and 4 females) were volunteers. Before the collection of sera, signed consent were obtained from the subjects or their parents or guardians. Information about geophagia (soil pica) and dog ownership were obtained by direct interrogation of the subjects and or their parents or guardians. Six of the subjects had parasitological proven helminthiasis which included ascariasis, taeniasis, trichuriasis and hookworm infections.After collection, serum samples were stored at -20 o C until required.Positive and negative control sera and Toxocara ES antigen were gifts from Dr Guus Van der Lugt, Institute of Infectious Diseases and Perinatal Screening, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.The ELISA -The ELISA was carried out in two 96 well polystyrene microtitre plates (Maxisorb, Nunc, Weisbaden, Germany). An amount of 100 µl of the antigen diluted 1:30 in carbonate buffer, pH 9.6 was added to each well. Then the plates were left opened and incubated overnight at 37 o C. The plates were washed five times with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) containing 0.05% Tween 20 (PBST). After discarding the washing fluid, 100 µl of the ...

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Microsporidia are obligate intracellular parasite that infect both vertebrate and invertebrate. In human, infection mostly focus on immunodeficiency and immunosuppressive individual. This study describes the prevalence, association of microsporidia infection with CD4 T Cell and risk factors associated with microsporidiosis among apparently health subject and immunocompromised individual in Minna, Niger state, Nigeria. Six hundred and Ninety-four (694) stools samples were collected and examined for microsporidia using Giemsa staining. Cytometer flow was used to determine CD4 T cell count. Pretest questionnaire was used to determine demographic, environmental hygiene, living condition and characteristics of the participants. Results showed 42 (6.06%) of the participant with and without diarrhoeawere positive for microsporidia infection. Histogram were used to describe distribution of microsporidia infection across diseases state. With cytometer flow, 6 (33.3%) among HIV/AIDS with ≤ 50 cell/µl. Highest prevalence were recorded among age ≥ 15 when compare with < 15 with 32 (10.8%) and 10 (7.47%), respectively. This study is first report of microsporidia in Niger state. Diagnose of microsporidia should be included in management of HIV/AIDS infection in Niger state.

Adolescents in Africa have low HIV testing rates. Determining the HIV prevalence among this group is very important because adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV) have worse health outcome than other populations of people living with HIV. This study aimed at determining the prevalence of HIV among children of adolescents age (10-18 years) that come for HIV testing in virology laboratory of National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Abuja from January 2013 to December 2018. The result was expressed in percentage and disaggregated by sex. Out of 533 adolescents tested over 6 years, 252 (51.9%) females and 234 (48.1%) were males. A total of 69 (14.1%) of them were tested HIV positive which 42 (8.6%) were females and 27 (5.5%) were males. The result of this study indicates that there is epidemics of HIV among adolescents living in Federal Capital Territory Abuja. It is also evident that females are more vulnerable to HIV infection than the males. There is therefore need for urgent standard and comprehensive procedure for adolescents living with HIV transitioning from paediatric to adult care. This also calls for intensive enlightment on HIV education especially in our basic and post basic schools in Abuja.