The Burden of Human Papillomavirus Infections Among Women in Nigeria: A Review Update
Cancer of the cervix is the second largest cause of mortality among women globally with an approximate estimate of over 500,000 new cases annually. Human Papillomavirus (HPV) has been long implicated as a necessary cause of Cervical Cancer (CC) in which 80% of the disease burden occurs in developing countries where organized cytology based programmes have not been feasible. Nigeria has a population of over 47 million women who are at risk of contracting HPV. It is estimated that 14,089 women are diagnosed with Cervical Cancer and 8,240 deaths annually. This review, selected publications on HPV related Cervical Cancer across Nigeria where proper quality controlled molecular methods were used for the diagnosis of HPV. Different genotypes of high risk HPV have been detected with variations across populations. HPV types found associated with women in Nigeria included types; 16,18,31,33,35,52,56 and 68 in disproportionate distribution with cases of multiple infections. Findings from this review revealed that the prevalence of Cervical Cancer is on the increase and factors such as; poverty, ignorance, socio-cultural practices, multiple infections by more than one HPV type, persistent infection, government policy, high cost of vaccines and poor acceptance of vaccines all played important roles in the increased prevalence. There is a need for more population based studies to ascertain specific HPV genotype common to specific population and the need for the development of multivalent therapeutic vaccines over the present prophylactic bivalent or quadrivalent vaccines which does not prevent against all oncogenic HPV genotypes.