Revista de SIDA e investigación clínica

Mucocutaneous Occurrences of the Syphilis in Pregnant and HIV Positive Women

Abstract

Craina M, Anca Bordianu, Carmen Lacramioara Zamfir, Roxana Folescu, Corina Matu, Elena Bernad, Izabella Petre and Anca Muresan

Introduction: “AIDS was the major epidemic of the 20th century, and remains the epidemic of the 21st century as well” thinks Prof. Jean-François Delfraissy, the director of the National Agency for Research on AIDS (ANRS). In the early 90’s, over 50% of HIV-positive European children were living in Romania. Even today, most HIV/AIDS-positive people live in Romania – more than 7000 being children and adolescents. The purpose of my study is the correlation of the female mucocutaneous genital lesions with the clinical picture and the laboratory data, and the data correlation in pregnant women.

Matter and methods: The methodological support of the paper is represented by various materials obtained from official sources and personal research. The epidemiological analysis of the HIV infection cases was made based on data with sanitary-epidemiological indicators selected from annual records, in the time period from 2005 to 2010. To determine the eligibility criteria for developing the epidemic process, in the study were used classical methods of retrospective statistical analysis of the annual and multiannual cases. I have used a series of blood tests, of which the best known and most used are the ELISA and the Western-Blot tests. The reaction of Western-Blot is very much used in present to confirm or disprove the result of the ELISA test regarding HIV (test for specific antibodies), which sometimes can be false positive.

Results and discussions: It is interesting to note that the infected mother’s antibodies can be transmitted to the fetus and it may persist in the fetus’s blood up to 18 months. A test performed during this period is positive, meaning it would indicate the presence of the infection although it is possible that the fetus was not infected (46 cases). Therefore, a positive HIV test is not significant, only after the age of 18 months. Of the total of 47 pregnant women under observation 32 of them had undergone caesarean section (the other ones quitted our service). The age of the pregnant women was between 21 and 36 years. Gestational age was, except for 2 cases (39 weeks), between 34-36 weeks. Female newborns weighed between 2100 g – 3300 g, AI (Apgar Index) 8 or 9. We also detected injuries caused by syphilis in 8 of our cases.

Conclusions: The genital chancre (genital ulceration) caused by syphilis makes a person more vulnerable to sexually transmitting or acquiring the HIV infection. The existence of syphilis increases the risk of acquiring HIV by 2 to 5 times.