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Objective: Epidemiology of human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) is still unknown in Tunisia. We aimed to assess the prevalence of HHV8 infection in adults and children from Central-East Tunisia and in patients with high risk of parenteral or sexual infection., Methods: We enrolled 553 subjects: 116 blood donors, 100 pregnant women, 100 children, 50 subjects with sexually transmitted infections with positive HIV serology and 50 other without HIV infection, 107 multitransfused patients and 30 kidney transplant patients. Antibodies against HHV8 were tested using a sensitive indirect immunofluorescence assay., Results: The seroprevalence of HHV8 was found to be 13.8% in blood donors, 13% in pregnant women and 12% in children. In healthy adult population, no association was found between HHV8 seropositivity and sex, sociodemographic characteristics, parenteral risk factors or serological markers of hepatitis B. Rates of HHV8 infection were significantly higher in patients having high-risk sexual behavior with or without HIV infection (P<10(-4)), in polytransfused patients (P<10(-4)) and in patients with kidney transplantation (P=0.001)., Conclusion: Our findings suggest that HHV8 infection is widespread in Central-East Tunisia such as in the Mediterranean area. HHV8 infection appears to be acquired early in life, probably through saliva. HHV8 transmission by blood transfusion, subject of controversy in literature, is well established in our study. Early screening of this infection should be considered in populations with high risk of Kaposi's sarcoma in our areas., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

This work presents the results of the behavioural and serologic survey on HIV/AIDS conducted from December 2007 to December 2008 among the group of STD (sexually transmitted disease) patients, supposed to be at HIV infection risk. In Mauritania, the last survey of HIV seroprevalence among the STD patients goes up to the year 1995 (the prevalence was estimated then to be 0.9%). The goal was to determine the seroprevalence of HIV and syphilis and to gather information on the knowledge, the sexual behaviours on a risk concerning the HIV/AIDS, and the sexually transmitted disease among these patients. The census has been made on over 224 STD patients during the period of the study, without predominance of sex and with a majority of young adults. The prevalence for HIV is 9% and for the syphilis it is 10%. Actually, the condom is widely underused by this group, even in occasional intercourse. The STD patients are a group of risk towards HIV, because of their risk behaviours and low level of knowledge.

This study was performed in the Sereer region 150 km to the east of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The population of the region is characterised by large seasonal migration, a high divorce rate (41% of marriages end in divorce) and frequent polygamy (1.8 married women per married man). We organised the medical centres in the region to monitor actively the epidemiology of HIV infection. Three populations were targeted: pregnant women presenting for their first prenatal consultation; patients presenting with STD; and people with chronic (more than three weeks) cough. The patients consulting for STD were recruited two ways: those presenting spontaneously and those identified during home interviews by the team performing a parallel sociological study of behaviour. Overall, the prevalence of HIV seropositivity was 0.2% of the women and 1.3% of the men (the difference is not significant). The seropositive individuals identified were 2 pregnant women and 5 patients (3 of 409 women and 2 of 84 men) with STD. There was no significant difference between the sex, age, marital status, or type of recruitment (spontaneous or identified by the sociological survey) of the HIV seropositive and seronegative individuals. The prevalence of treponema antibodies was 1.8% among pregnant women, 2% among STD patients and 2.4% among patients with chronic cough. There was no significant difference according to age, sex, marital status or motivation for consultation. More than half the patients consulting for STD presented biomedical disease. The majority of the STD patients were women: 70% of those spontaneous consulting; 90% of those identified by the survey; and 92% of those with biomedical disease were women.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)