HIGH-RATES OF GENITAL MYCOPLASMA-INFECTION IN THE HIGHLANDS OF PAPUA-NEW-GUINEA DETERMINED BOTH BY CULTURE AND BY A COMMERCIAL DETECTION KIT

Duplicate vaginal swabs were collected from 100 women, and comparisons were made between an in-house broth-agar culture system and a commerc ially available kit, the Mycoplasma IST kit (bioMerieux), for the dete ction of Mycoplasma hominis and Ureaplasma urealyticum. There was good agreement between the two systems for detection of the genital mycopl asmas in terms of sensitivity, with values of >92% being obtained, In terms of specificity, the mutual comparisons were less favorable, thou gh specificity values of >72% were obtained, Statistically there was n o significant difference in the performance of the two tests (P > 0.1 for both M. hominis and U. urealyticum). While the broth-agar culture system was considerably less expensive than the kit, the Mycoplasma IS T kit provided additional information on antibiotic susceptibilities a nd had the advantages of a shelf life of up to 12 months and not requi ring the preparation of culture media, The prevalences of colonization obtained for M. hominis and U. urealyticum were extremely high in thi s randomly selected group of women from periurban and rural settlement s in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, being greater than or equal to 70% for M. hominis and greater than or equal to 78% for U. ur ealyticum, Colonization with both genital mycoplasmas simultaneously w as also very common, with greater than or equal to 60% of women being colonized by both M. hominis and U. urealyticum.