Abstract

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a widely prevalent infection that is associated with a range of adverse outcomes. We compared the rates of incidentally identified BV and other cervico-vaginal infections on Papanicolaou (Pap) smears of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected and HIV-uninfected adolescent females in South Africa. Cervical specimens from 50 HIV-uninfected and 32 HIV-infected sexually active South African adolescent females age 17 to 21 were collected and analyzed in accordance with the Bethesda system. We found a high overall prevalence of BV (54.9%) in our cohort. While previous research has found an increased prevalence of BV among HIV-infected women, the difference in the prevalence of BV between our HIV-infected group (62.5%) and HIV-uninfected group (50.0%) was not found to be statistically significant. The high rate of BV in both of these groups has significant implications for their risk of HIV acquisition and/or transmission in addition to other associated risks of BV.

Key words: Bacterial vaginosis, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), papanicolaou smear, adolescents, South Africa.