Efforts to map the burden of infections globally have shown a high prevalence of genital infections, including Chlamydia trachomatis, in sub-Saharan Africa. This retrospective study aimed to investigate the prevalence of selected non-viral genital infections among pregnant women in Pemba Island, Tanzania. Vaginal swabs were collected during pregnancy and stored in eNAT buffer. Detection of C. trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrheae, Trichomonas vaginalis, and Mycoplasma genitalium pathogens was performed by PCR using validated detection kits. Vaginal samples of 439 pregnant women between 16 and 48 years were tested. In fifty-five (12.5%) of them, at least one genital pathogen was detected. The most prevalent pathogen was T. vaginalis (7.1%), followed by C. trachomatis (4.6%) and M. genitalium (2.1%). None of the vaginal samples tested positive for N. gonorrheae. Consequently, among positive samples, 7.3% were for C. trachomatis and at least one other genital pathogen. This study provides insights on the burden of the four studied genital infections, and on the coinfections among pregnant women in Pemba Island, Tanzania. These results offer a starting point that can be useful to design further research in the field of maternal and child health in Pemba Island.
Keywords: Chlamydia trachomatis; Mycoplasma genitalium; Neisseria gonorrhoeae; Tanzania; Trichomonas vaginalis; pregnancy; sexual and reproductive health; sub-Saharan Africa.