Asymptomatic Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infections in Women Delegates at a Christian Conference in Niger State, North Central, Nigeria: A Prospective Study

Background: The global HIV/AIDS epidemic has killed an estimated 21.8 million people and another 36.1 million are living with HIV infection. Sexual transmission is by far the most common mode of transmission globally. The HIV virus is often found predominantly within these subpopulations at the beginning of an epidemic when prevalence is extremely low in the general population

Aim: To study the prevalence rate of HIV among the women delegate in the conference and to determine the incidence rate among the age group as well as occupational category of participants.

Materials and Methods: About 2 ml venous blood samples were collected from each subject and inoculated in a micro-container evacuated blood collection System with additive (K2EK2EDTA- Greiner bio-one USA). The serum samples were screened according to the manufacturer instruction using Determine kit HIV 1 & 2 and reactive serum was further confirmed with Uni-Gold. Data was coded, computed and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 and p values ?0.05 is considered to be statistically significant.

Results: Out of the 327 women delegates within the age group 16 & 65years in this studied population, our research showed that the prevalence rate of HIV infections was 2.8%, statistically not significant (p=0.837, mean value=4.91, median=5.00, S.D= ±2.03).

A higher percentage of (8.7%) and (4.2%) with HIV positive in relation to age were found within the age brackets 26 – 30 years and 36 – 40 years respectively. The highest number of HIV positive individual were found among the house wives (9.5%) followed by civil servant (3.7%).

Conclusion: Overall HIV infections prevalence rate of 2.8% in this conference population is a serious health challenge. Therefore, we recommend sex education in our religious communities at all level to both teenagers and adults; sex education should not be over spiritualized to reduce the menace in our society. Also, private sectors such as non-governmental organization need to provide support so as to reduce the financial burden on government.