Human herpesvirus 8: Seroepidemiology among women and detection in the genital tract of seropositive women

An indirect IFA to detect antibodies against latent nuclear antigens of hum an herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) was used to determine the prevalence of HHV-8 anti bodies in 169 women attending a sexually transmitted diseases clinic and a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) clinic at a London hospital. Nested poly merase chain reaction was used to detect HHV-8 DNA in 93 blood samples and 89 cervical brush scrapes (CBS), Another 96 CBS from women attending a colp oscopy clinic were also analyzed. The overall seroprevalence of HHV-8 was 1 8.3%. The seroprevalence was higher among women born in Africa (24.7%) than among women born elsewhere (11.5%; P = .06) and was independent of HIV ser ostatus, HHV-8 DNA was detected in 3 CBS and 6 peripheral blood samples fro m 11 HHV-8-seropositive women but not in CBS from 78 seronegative women, 96 women from the colposcopy clinic, or in blood samples from 82 seronegative women.