Epstein Barr Virus nuclear antigen and sociodemographical characteristics of HIV-infected individuals in two tertiary health facilities in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is one of the opportunistic pathogens that affects HIV infected individuals. Although high prevalence of EBV has been well documented in Africa and some parts of Nigeria, such data are sparse from Rivers State, Nigeria. Thus, this study aimed at determining the Epstein Barr virus nuclear antigens and the sociodemographical characteristics of HIV-infected individuals in two tertiary hospitals in Rivers State, Nigeria. Plasma from 182 HIV-infected individuals attending the Retroviral Clinics of UPTH and RSUTH in Rivers State, Nigeria were tested for antibodies specific for EBNA by IgM ELISA assays. Overall prevalence of IgM antibodies against Epstein Barr Nucleic Acid (EBNA) was 20.9%. The study showed sex-related statistical variances in the seropositivity of anti-IgM (females 23.5% vs. males 16.4%, p<0.05). Higher seropositivity occurred in age range 0-20 years (25.0%) than other age range, divorced and widowed (50.0%) than the married (25.7%) and singles (10.1%), among tertiary education (24.7%) than secondary (20.5%) and primary education (8.3%), Islamic religion (56.3%) than Christian religion (17.5%), and social/healthcare workers (37.5%) than other occupational groups. Summarily, higher seropositivity of anti-IgM antibodies against EBV was observed in HIV-infected individuals in UPTH than their counterparts in RSUTH. Nevertheless, 20.9% of the HIV-infected individuals in this study that were categorized with current/ongoing primary infection, owed to VCA-IgM detection, were positive for EBNA IgM antibodies. In conclusion, this study clearly confirmed that EBV seropositivity considerably increased with age, sex, marital status, educational level, religion, and occupation. Thus, this study verified earlier studies that presented high EBV seroprevalence, touching >50.0%the populace in Nigeria. Future larger and multi-center clinical research are suggested to address some unanswered seroepidemiological questions.