Prevalence of Trichomonas Infection among Women Attending Antenatal Clinics in Zaria, Nigeria

Background: Trichomoniasis has emerged to be one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. Methods: High vaginal swabs (HVS) were collected from randomly selected 300 women attending antenatal clinics in three public health facilities within Zaria. Results: The prevalence of trichomoniasis amongst three hundred randomly selected women attending three antenatal clinics in Zaria was determined by the direct wet mount examination and culture techniques on high vaginal specimens collected with sterile swabs. Of the total patients screened for trichomoniasis, there was an18.66% prevalence rate 35.71% of which were diagnosed by direct microscopic examination of HVS wet mount preparations. The infection rate was highest among the age group of 16-25 year –which had a prevalence rate of 53.57% followed by the 26-35 year age group with 32.14%. Conclusions: The high recovery rate obtained in this study demonstrates the importance of employing both direct microscopic examinations of wet mount preparation and culture techniques in the diagnosis of trichomoniasis. These findings also confirm the advantage of using culture techniques over the wet mount direct microscopic examination of HVS in the diagnosis of this disease.