Home Family Practice Higher Burden of Trichomonas vaginalis Infection in U.S. Blacks

Higher Burden of Trichomonas vaginalis Infection in U.S. Blacks

Positive association for TV infection prevalence with female sex, black race, being below poverty level

FRIDAY, March 16, 2018 (HealthDay News) — The burden of Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) infection is disproportionately high among blacks in the United States, according to a study published online March 15 in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Eshan U. Patel, M.P.H., from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and colleagues tested 4,057 males and females aged 18 to 59 years who participated in the 2013 to 2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and provided urine specimens for TV infection.

The researchers found that the prevalence of TV infection was 0.5 and 1.8 percent among males and females, respectively; 4.2 and 8.9 percent among black males and black females, respectively; and 0.03 and 0.8 percent among males and females of other races/ethnicities, respectively. There were positive associations for TV infection prevalence with female sex, black race, older age, being below the poverty level, and having two or more sexual partners. No TV and Chlamydia trachomatis co-infection was seen. There were no independent associations for genital human papillomavirus detection with TV infection. The relative racial disparity in TV infection was higher among persons age 18 to 39 years than the relative racial disparity of other sexually transmitted infections.

“There is a high and disproportionate burden of TV infection in the adult civilian, non-institutionalized black population in the United States that warrants intervention,” the authors write.

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