Background: Many women are known to contract human papilloma virus (HPV) infection in their lifetime but only a few develop cervical cancer. One of the major factors that contribute to development of cervical cancer is HPV persistence. Several other factors including viral load have been implicated in cervical cancer development. This work therefore intends to investigate the persistence of cervical HPV infection among cohort of women in Awka, Nigeria.

Methodology: A cohort of 58 women with normal Papanicolaou (Pap) test but positive HPV DNA selected from a population of 410 women at baseline were followed up over a period of 6 months from April to October 2015. Cervical specimens collected were subjected to HPV DNA test and viral quantification using TaqMan Real Time PCR and cervical cytology. Risk factors were obtained using semi structured interviewer administered questionnaires. Variables were analysed using descriptive statistics and T-test on IBM SPSS statistics version 21.0 and EPI INFOTM 7.0

Results: At the 6-month follow up, cervical HPV infection persisted in 29 women, representing 50% of the women followed up. Among the 29 women, 7 (24.1%) developed abnormal Pap smear (Low grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion). Factors significantly associated with persistence at bivariate analysis of HPV include previous sexually transmitted infection (STI)(p= 0.005), HIV positivity (p= 0.04), HIV positivity but no anti-retroviral drugs (p= 0.014), HPV 16 infection (p< 0.0001) and age less than 40 years (p< 0.0001). At multinomial logistic regression, only age above 17 years at first sexual intercourse (p= 0.003, CI= 0.012-0.392) and multiple lifetime sexual partners (p= 0.021, CI= 0.20-0.726) were statistically significant.

Conclusion: High risk HPV infection, in addition to other factors peculiar to an individual may influence HPV persistence