Chlamydia activity in North East zone of Nigeria

Chlamydia includes organisms formally called Taiwanese Acute Respiratory (TWAR) and the Trachoma Inclusion Conjunctivitis (TRIC) and those responsible for genital tract infections with very serious sequelae. Information regarding relative frequencies of Chlamydia infections in Nigeria are sparse. A total of 300 blood samples were collected from males and females in North East zone of Nigeria and tested for Chlamydia complement fixing antibody (CCFA). All the positive subjects had either endocervical swabs, urethral swabs or throat swabs taken from them and cultured into the yolk sac of embryonated eggs before being tested using the Romanowsky-Giemsa staining technique which acted as a control to the complement fixation test. Statistical analysis was carried out in Microsoft excel and epi-info software. Only 211 samples were positive to CCFA (70.3%) while 201 (95.3%) of the positive samples were positive using the culture method as seen using the Romanowsky-Giemsa staining technique. Of the positive result using the culture method, 120 were positive to Chlamydia pneumoniae while only 81 were positive to Chlamydia trachomatis. From the total of 211 positive samples only 135 were females while 76 were males. The total number of positive symptomatic patients was 127 of which 92 were females and 35 males. The 84 non-symptomatic positive patients, only 20 were males while 64 were females. Age groups 31-35 years had the highest positive cases. There was no significant difference between the number of males and females and there was also no significant difference between the positive samples due to culture and CCFA. A high percentage of positive samples validated by Chi-square test shows that Chlamydia infections are endemic in the population and effort should be made to screen the pathogen early to avoid the serious sequelae posed by these organisms.