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

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.

Prevalence and susceptibility to antibiotics of Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains isolated from genital samples in Bangui, Central African Republic

“…The prevalence of N. gonorrhoeae was 3.2%. This prevalence is higher than the global prevalence of 0.9 and 0.7% respectively among women and men (Kirkcaldy et al, 2019;Rowley et al, 2019) and that observed among women in Ndjamena in Chad (1.2%) (Compain, 2019). The prevalence of our series was lower than that of South Africa (4.6%) and East Africa (8.2%).…”

“…In this study, the detection of N. gonorrhoeae was carried out by classical bacteriological examination with culture. The prevalence would therefore be underestimated because the trend is now to use nucleic acid amplification tests (Poncin and Bercot, 2019) as is the case in the studies by Compain, Kirkcaldy and Torrone (Compain et al, 2019;Kirkcaldy et al, 2019;Torrone et al, 2018), more sensitive than culture.…”