Prevalence of Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) History among Sexually Active Youth During Papillomavirus Infection in the Republic of Congo

Papillomavirus infection is the most widespread sexually transmitted infection in young girls. The literature reports that in 80% of cases, this STI is eliminated naturally by the body: this is known as viral clearance. However, in the remaining 20% of cases, the infection persists and can lead to cervical cancer 10 or even 30 years after primary infection. This persistence is due to a number of risk factors, including other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) such as chlamydia, mycoses and so on. So, in the absence of data on HPV, STIs and young people, and with a view to developing a sound policy to combat human papillomavirus infection, we conducted a prospective, analytical study of sexually active young girls living in the Republic of Congo, in general secondary schools in the cities of Pointe-Noire and Brazzaville. Of the 260 girls surveyed, only 198 aged between 15 and 25 had given their approval for the study. The average age of our study was reported to be 19 years. We observed that 64.14% of our study population had early sexual intercourse, with only 33.3% using contraceptive methods. The prevalence of previous STIs was estimated at 64.6%, with mycoses predominating (73.4%), followed by chlamydia (15.6%). There was an association between contraceptive use and STIs (p=0.003). Girls with single or cohabiting parents were 3 to 4 times more likely to contract an STI than those with married parents. Molecular analysis reported a 45.45% prevalence of HPV carriage. We noted that girls whose parents were cohabiting were 3 times more likely to carry HPV than those whose parents were married. There was no association between STI history and HPV carriage. These results underline the importance of practicing IEC with sexually active young girls in order to prevent the risk of exposure to STIs and minimize the contraction of STIs in general and HPV in particular.