OBJECTIVE Cervical cancer is a leading cause of cancer mortality in South Africa. However, little is known about oral human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in high human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) seroprevalence settings. METHOD Thirty-four adult heterosexual couples attending an HIV testing center in Soweto, South Africa were enrolled. Each participant provided an oral rinse sample and geni...

Accurate identification of persons with genital herpes is necessary for optimal patient management and prevention of transmission. Because of inherent inaccuracies, clinical diagnosis of genital herpes should be confirmed by laboratory testing for the causative agents herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and HSV type 2 (HSV-2). Further identification of the HSV type is valuable for counselling o...

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are associated with a spectrum of diseases, ranging from common warts to invasive carcinoma of the genital tract. The clinical manifestations of HPV infection depend on the viral subtype, the immune status of the patient, and environmental co-carcinogens. Infection with HPV is often asymptomatic, which makes viral detection challenging. Current therapies do not rel...

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate pigs as a large-animal model for female genital infection with two Chlamydia trachomatis human serovar E strains. Sixteen-week-old specific-pathogen-free female pigs (gilts) were intravaginally infected with the trachoma type E reference strain Bour or the urogenital serovar E strain 468. Several conclusions can be drawn from our findings on the ...

Condyloma acuminatum, is a rare sexually transmitted disease. The virus responsible for condyloma is human papillomavirus. HPV-6 and HPV-11 are the most commonly detected HPV genotypes, but at least 20 other HPV genotypes have occasionally been found in genital wart tissue specimens. In fact genital HPV infection is common among sexually active populations. This disease may occur at any age af...

Objective Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) and can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, and chronic pelvic pain in women and increased risk of vertical transmission, conjunctivitis, and pnuemonitis in infants. It may also be a co-factor along with HPV in cervical cancer progression. The current study aimed to determine the prevalenc...

INTRODUCTION HIV affects more women than any other life-threatening infectious agent, and most infections are sexually transmitted. HIV must breach the female genital tract mucosal barrier to establish systemic infection, and clinical studies indicate virus more easily evades this barrier in women using depot-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) and other injectable progestins for contraception. ...

Current design strategies for vaccines against certain microbial pathogens, including Chlamydia trachomatis, require the induction and targeting of specific immune effectors to the local sites of infection known as the mucosal effector sites. Chemokines and their receptors are important mediators of leukocyte trafficking and of the controlled recruitment of specific leukocyte clonotypes during ...

Cervical swabs for Chlamydia culture were collected from 638 unselected women attending a sexually transmitted diseases clinic with a fresh complaint. Chlamydia were isolated from 76 (12 per cent.) of the women. When the results were related to the patients' diagnoses, Chlamydia were present in 44 per cent. of women with gonorrhoea and in 22 per cent. of women who were contacts of men with nons...