Preliminary study of Human Herpesvirus type 8 infection in antenatal clinic attendees in Dakar (Senegal)

HHV8 was discovered in 1994 and few studies on this virus have been conduct ed in Africa. The virus is related to Kaposi sarcoma, an opportunistic affe ction occurring during HIV infection. No studies have been carried out on t his subject in Senegal, a country known for its low KS prevalence even amon g people living with HIV/AIDS. Thus it will be interesting to explore this field, The aim of our study has been first, to demonstrate the presence of HHV8, second to evaluate sero-prevalence of the infection in Senegal and th ird, to determine the specificities of HHV8 infection in our country. We pe rformed our study on 407 pregnant women whose average age was 29.24 years, the majority of whom were Senegalese. HIV serology was done by dot blot for the screening and western blot for the confirmation, For the diagnosis of HHV8 infection, we used the indirect immunofluorescence kit of ABI. HIV inf ection was low among this study population; 0.5% and no HIV1 infection was mentioned. Among the 407 women, 58 or 143% were HHV8 positive and there was no HHV8/HIVco-infection. Regarding marital status, no significant differen ce was found between HHV8 positive and HHV8 negative among unmarried, monog amous or polygamous women. However women having had 4 to 5 children were mo re likely to test positive for HHV8. The difference is significant and a re lationship has been established with a p value of 0.02. Regarding pregnancy , HHV8 infection is more closely related to abortion: 17.2% of women who ha d aborted were HHV8 positive versus 4.9% seronegative. The odds ratio calcu lation shows a strong correlation with a p value of 0.01. No correlation wa s found between HHV8 infection of the mother and neonate mortality or Apgar score. However a relationship did show up between HHV8 infection of the mo ther and low birth weight. 29.2% of seropositive women had had a child with a birth weight under 2600 g whereas only 16.3% of seronegative women had h ad babies with low birth weight. We determined that HHV8 is indeed present in Senegal. Further studies should focus on transmission routes as well as the molecular epidemiology of this virus and diseases related to HHV8 infec tion in Senegal.