In their study of South African women’s intravaginal practices and risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, Myer et al. (1) found a significant association between intravaginal practices and HIV serostatus at baseline but not during follow-up. Their results contrast with those from our prospective study of the effect of vaginal washing on HIV acquisition among women in Mombasa, Ken...

BACKGROUND Clinical development of vaginally applied products aimed at reducing the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, has highlighted the need for a better characterisation of the vaginal environment. We set out to characterise the vaginal environment in women in different settings in sub-Saharan Africa. METHODS A longitudinal study was conducted in Kenya, Rwanda ...

Vaginal innate immunity in response to microbial perturbation is still poorly understood and could be crucial for protection from adverse outcomes. We investigated the relationship between interleukin (IL)-8, IL-1beta and neutrophils in vaginal fluid obtained from 60 healthy women and 51 women who were bacterial vaginosis (BV) positive. Concentrations of IL-8 and IL-1beta were highly correlated...

Determination of the type and origin of biological samples found at crime scenes can provide important clues for crime scene reconstructions by supporting a link between sample donors and actual criminal acts. The presence of certain body fluids can be used as excellent indicators of the sequence of events which occurred. For example, blood stains can indicate some form of physical struggle, as...

Leukocytes, particularly neutrophils, infiltrate into female genital organs after ovulation in both humans and mice. In mice, a female sexual cycle consists of 5 phases: proestrus, estrus, metestrus-1, metestrus-2, and diestrus. Ovulation occurs at estrus; at metestrus-2, a large number of neutrophils infiltrate into the vaginal epithelium accompanied by an increased neutrophil number in vagina...

Objectives: To determine the diagnostic value of the lactate concentration in vaginal secretions in determining the premature rupture of membranes. Subjects and Methods: One hundred 100 pregnant women with single pregnancy of gestational age 20–41 weeks were divided to two groups of 50 each. One group comprised of women with premature rupture of membranes, and the other (control group) of women...

Antiretroviral entry inhibitors are now being considered as vaginally administered microbicide candidates for the prevention of the sexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus. Previous studies testing the entry inhibitors maraviroc and CMPD167 in aqueous gel formulations showed efficacy in the macaque challenge model, although protection was highly dependent on the time period between ...

'Abstract'Sperm DNA was isolated from vaginal fluid and/or endocervical mucoid plugs at various postcoital intervals. Samples were obtained from 25 volunteer couples. DNA was also prepared from the blood and semen of the couples. The DNA was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with DlS8O primers. The Fragment length polymorphism of the amplified products (AMP-FLP) was analysed by acryl...

Introduction: Metritis is one of the causes of maternal morbidity and there are many risk factors for it. Because of the importance of possible association of meconium-stained amniotic fluid and maternal metritis the present study was done to determine whether meconium stained amniotic fluid (MSAF) is associated with puerperal infection. Methods: In this case-control study 150 women with MSAF a...