Helicobacter pylori infection in South Nigerians: a serological study of dyspeptic patients and healthy individuals.

Helicobacter pylori has now been well recognised to play a significant role in the pathogenesis of gastroduodenal disease. So far serology has been the most useful technique for rapid access to accurate information about H. pylori status of dyspeptic patients. This study reports on the seroprevalence of Hpylori infection in both dyspeptic and healthy adult Nigerian subjects in a community located in the South Western part of Nigeria. Two groups of subjects were studied, consisting of 25 adult Nigerian patients with dyspepsia who presented at the Gastroenterology Clinic, and 25 healthy adult Nigerian volunteers. Serum samples were prepared from five milliliters of blood collected from each of the subjects. The quantity of IgG antibodies to Hpylori was determined in each of these 50 samples, using the immunocomb II. Helicobacter pylori IgG kit, with each test result being validated by an internal controL Twenty-two (88%) of the 25 dyspeptic patients and 20 (80%) of the normal individuals were seropositive for IgG antibody to H. pylori. The difference in infection rate between both sexes was not statistically significant These results indicate a high rate of Hpylori infection in this locality as reported in previous serological studies in this country and some other developing countries. The similarly high seroprevalence of H. pylori infection in both our healthy individuals and dyspeptic patients also supports the assertion, earlier made in the literature, that H. pylori exerts its influence in concert with other environmental factors as well as social and genetic factors.

Human immunodeficiency seropositivity among mother-child pairs in South West Nigeria: a community-based survey.

A community based survey to determine the prevalence of human immunodeficiency infection in Nigerian women and children in South Western Nigeria is reported. A multi-stage cluster random sampling procedure was used to select mother-child pairs from 35 enumeration areas in South western Nigeria. The final study sample consisted of 460 mothers and 476 children (including 16 sets of twins). A commercially available recombinant antigen-based ELISA method was used to test for HIV-1 and HIV-2 antibody in sera and Western blotting was used as a confirmatory test for initially reactive samples. Only one mother-child pair (out of 460 mother-child pairs) was found to be positive for HIV antibody giving a mother-child concordance for HIV infection of 0.22%. Antibody to either HIV-1 or HIV-2 was detected in 3.8% (18/476) of the children's sera and in 43% (20/460) of mothers sera. HIV-1 reactivity was commoner than HIV-2 reactivity (2.9% versus 0.8% among children and 2.8% versus 1.5% among mothers). There were many more positive samples in the rural than in urban areas among children (7.1% versus 1.1%) and also among mothers (6.8% versus 2.4%), (p<0.001). Thus, HIV infection appears to be a real problem in South western Nigeria. The lack of concordance between mother-child sera suggests that vertical transmission may not be a major route of transmission of HIV infection in children in South western Nigeria. It is suggested that certain high risk practices (such as the re-use of unsterilised hypodermic needles for injections and surgical knives in local scarification) which are common practices, especially in rural areas, need to be investigated as potential major modes of transmission of the infection. Control programmes need to take note of these findings in order to adequately plan comprehensive health education which will cover the whole population, including children.