Prevalence of Human Papilloma Virus among women of child bearing Age in Yola Adamawa State, Nigeria

Epidemiological, molecular and clinical evidences have shown that cervical cancer is caused by the human papilloma-virus HPV), especially genotype 16 18 and 45. This study aims to survey the prevalence of high-risk types of HPV 16 18/45 among women of child-bearing age. Three hundred 300) women aged 18 years and above were randomly selected from the community and patients attending Specialist Hospital Yola (S.H.Y) and Federal Medical Center (F.M.C) Yola, Adamawa State. Relevant sexual and socio-demographic information was obtained from each subject using a questionnaire. High Vaginal swab samples were collected and analyzed using APTIMA Assay to identify the high-risk HPV genotype 16, 18 and 45. Out of the 300 samples analyzed, 56 (18.7%) were positive, 238 (79.3%) were negative for HPV and 6 (2%) are invalid. Out of the positive samples obtained, 29 (51%) were HPV 16 while 27 (48.2%) were HPV 18/45. The study also showed that the age grade of 24-41 years had the highest prevalence of 25.6 %. No positive sample was found among age grades of 18-23. The result shows that HPV prevalence was significantly associated with the number of sexual partners (P=0.009). Keywords Cervical-cancer, Human papilloma virus, High vaginal swab, high risk, sexually transmitted, APTIMA assay