Baseline prevalence and type distribution of Human papillomavirus in sexually active non-vaccinated adolescent girls from Argentina

JOAQUÍN VÍCTOR GONZÁLEZ; GERARDO DANIEL DELUCA; DOMINGO JAVIER LIOTTA; RITA MARIEL CORREA; JORGE ALEJANDRO BASILETTI; MARÍA CELESTE COLUCCI; NATHALIA KATZ; CARLA VIZZOTTI; MARÍA ALEJANDRA PICCONI; ALEJANDRA GIURGIOVICH; OLGA GABRIELA ALZOGARAY; RICARDO ABOSLAIMAN; CECILIA CHAMI; JUAN JOSÉ CARMONA; NÉSTOR FABIÁN TAPPARI; ANDREA MORGENSTERN; TOTARO MARÍA ELINA; ENRIQUE BERNER; VIVIANA CRAMER; SANDRA VÁZQUEZ; PAULA REAL; CARLOTA LOPEZ KAUFMAN; GABRIELA KOSOY; LUCÍA KATABIAN; MARÍA SILVIA SEVERINO

REVISTA ARGENTINA DE MICROBIOLOGíA

ASOCIACION ARGENTINA MICROBIOLOGIA

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2021 vol. 53 p. 11 - 19

0325-7541

In 2011, Argentina launched a government-funded national Human papillomavirus (HPV) immunization program incorporating a bivalent HPV vaccine, with a 0?1?6-month schedule, for girls 11 years of age, born after January 2000. Monitoring the changes of HPV infection prevalence among young women has been proposed as an endpoint for early assessment of HPV vaccination programs. However, the data on HPV prevalence at young ages are very limited. The aim of this work was to determine the prevalence of HPV infection and type-specific distribution in sexually active 15?17-year-old non-vaccinated girls. Cervical samples from 1073 adolescents were collected for HPV detection and genotyping using the BSGP5+/GP6+PCR-reverse line blot (RLB) assay. Out of 957 specimens analyzed, 56.3% were positive for any HPV type; 42.2% harbored at least one high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) type and 30.8% low-risk HPV (LR-HPV) types. Multiple and single infections were identified in 36.3% and 20.0% of the samples respectively. The 6 most common HR-HPV types were HPV16 (11.1%), HPV52 (10.8%), HPV56 (8.3%), HPV51 (7.4%), HPV58 (7.3%) and HPV31 (7.1%). The prevalence of HR-HPV-16/18 was 15.2%. In conclusion, results confirm that HPV (particularly HR-types) are very common among sexually active adolescents, and prevalence rises quickly after their sexual debut. Our HPV type-specific prevalence baseline may be used to monitor post-vaccinal longitudinal changes in Argentina.