ASSOCIATION OF PATHOGENS INVOLVED IN SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS

Currently over 30 bacteria, viruses and parasites are transmitted through vaginal, oral or anal sexual contact, causing Sexually transmitted infections (STIs). They generally are under-diagnosed as most STIs are asymptomatic. Antibiotic treatment is detailed for each pathogen. If treatment is absent or inappropriate, STIs can cause short-term complications as well as sequelae in the medium and long term. Occasional association of several STI pathogens is documented and frequently results in treatment failure. Based on a multiplex PCR detection method, our study aims to observe the associations between the most common six pathogens that induce STIs: Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Trichomonas vaginalis, Ureaplasma urealyticum, Mycoplasma hominis and Mycoplasma genitalium. First void urine was collected from 311 symptomatic and asymptomatic patients of both genders. The DNA was extracted, purified and amplified via multiplex PCR for simultaneous detection of all the above-mentioned pathogens and further identified in the mix using a 2% agarose gel electrophoresis. We detected 100 positive patients, 77 of whom presented simple infections. 16 of the 23 co-infected patients were diagnosed with double infections, 5 with triple infections and one each with 4 and 5 pathogen associations, respectively. In more than half of the STIs cases involving N. gonorrhoeae associations with C. trachomatis were observed. The latter pathogen was also present in over 40% of the U. urealyticum infections. PCR multiplexing proved to be useful in simultaneously identifying several pathogens from a single specimen and confirmed frequent associations among STI pathogens.