HIV Infection in Rural Villages of Cameroon

Abstract

We have documented a wide range of HIV prevalences among rural villages of Cameroon. Age, marital status (in women) and sexual risk factors appear to be associated with HIV infection in this setting.

HIV infection in older adults in sub-Saharan Africa: extrapolating prevalence from existing data

“…Population-based surveys of HIV infection prevalence among older adults would provide more reliable and robust data. 29 and a study among people admitted to hospital in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania, reported a prevalence of 15% among those aged ≥ 55. 30 A study in the Congo described 175 cases of HIV infection among people aged ≥ 55 years from 1990 to 1996.…”

HIV/AIDS in Cameroon: Rising gender issues in policy-making matters

“…Evidence suggests that urban residents, and particularly urban youth, tend to show higher levels of awareness of HIV/AIDS and ways of avoiding HIV infection than rural residents [16], but are more prone to risky sexual behaviour. Studies in Cameroon have shown that poor single mothers, spinsters or unemployed migrants from rural to urban areas, uneducated girls, and petit traders involved in bar business engage in sexual relations to meet with up with their basic economic needs and take care of their children [25]. For this group, assistance with economic survival; (fees to stay in school, living expenses, food and cloth are their motivations for entering high risky and unprotected sexual relationship [14,25].…”

“…Studies in Cameroon have shown that poor single mothers, spinsters or unemployed migrants from rural to urban areas, uneducated girls, and petit traders involved in bar business engage in sexual relations to meet with up with their basic economic needs and take care of their children [25]. For this group, assistance with economic survival; (fees to stay in school, living expenses, food and cloth are their motivations for entering high risky and unprotected sexual relationship [14,25]. Recent studies using UNAIDS data have shown that, in many countries of SSA, HIV/AIDS is disproportionately an urban phenomenon [35].…”

“…Although HIV/AIDS had been discovered in 1980, the first cases in Cameroon were diagnosed in 1985 [24]. By 1994 the registered number of full-blown cases of AIDS reached 5,375 and by 2005, 510000 were HIV/AIDS positive [25,26]. In Cameroon, 90 percent of all cases of transmission are through unprotected sexual contact, while transmission through contaminated blood and from mother to child accounts for about 10 [20].…”

Quasispecies analysis of novel HIV‐1 recombinants of subtypes A and G reveals no similarity to the mosaic structure of CRF02_AG

“…One such recombinant, CRF02_AG, is prevalent in West-Central Africa, playing a significant role in the epidemic [Montavon et al, 2000;Carr et al, 2001;Nyambi et al, 2002a;Burda et al, 2004]. CRF02_AG accounts for greater than 65% of infections in Cameroon, cocirculating among a broad genetic diversity of HIV-1 strains, including all groups, all group M (sub-)subtypes, and a vast array of recombinants [Zhong et al, 2002[Zhong et al, , 2003Nyambi et al, 2002b]. Importantly, recent work showed that almost half of all URFs in the eastern parts of Cameroon contain genetic material of CRF02_AG [Konings et al, 2006b].…”