Journal of Infectious Diseases
Volume 210 Issue 6 September 15, 2014
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/current

Prevalence of Human Papillomavirus Infection in Adolescent Girls Before Reported Sexual Debut
Jennifer S. Smith
Author Affiliations
Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, and Cervical Cancer Free Coalition, Chapel Hill
(See the major article by Houlihan et al on pages 837–45.)
Houlihan et al present data on the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection among 474 adolescent girls aged 15–16 years in Tanzania who reported no previous sexual intercourse. Despite no reported history of sex, a nonnegligible fraction of girls (8.4%) tested positive for HPV infection, using a highly sensitive polymerase chain reaction assay from nurse-assisted, self-administered cervicovaginal specimens.

Global data on the prevalence of HPV infection among adolescents worldwide are extremely limited [1]. Therefore, these data from Tanzania are important because they are among the first to examine HPV infection prevalence among female adolescents and are from sub-Saharan Africa, which has one of the highest incidence rates of invasive cervical cancer in the world [2].

As cited by the authors, the laboratory-confirmed prevalence of HPV infection was relatively higher than that previously observed in studies from Europe, Australia, and the United States, which found extremely low or no HPV detection among female participants reporting no previous sexual intercourse. The 2010 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS) documented a self-reported median age at first intercourse of 17.4 years…