Prevalence of HIV-I subtypes in infected concordant and discordant couples in Nigera

Abstract

The peptide binding immunoassay (PELISA) was used as previously described to determine HIV-I subtypes among 60 married HIV-I sero-positive individuals and their spouses identified at the University College Hospital, Ibadan in order to investigate the rate of heterosexual partners by different HIV-I subtypes in Nigeria. Out of the 60 couples whose blood samples were analyzed, 33 (55%) were both positive HIV while only one spouse of the couples was sero-positive among the other 27. Using the McNemer test for discordant paired samples, an insignificant (P=0.0636) differnce was obtained between male to female and female to male transmission. Subtypes A, B, C and E were dtected among these individuals. Most (82.3%) of the subtypes C and all of the subtype E(12) were detected among the tranmitters (couples with concordant sero-positive status). This study indicates that HIV-I subtypes C and E may be more efficiently transmitted heterosexually than the other subtypes.