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Updated: Jun 2, 2026

Ex vivo Culture of Human Placental Explants for the Study of Viral Transmission Across the Maternal-Fetal Interface
Published on: December 30, 2025
Genital HSV detection among HIV-1-infected pregnant women in labor
Janna Patterson1, Jane Hitti, Stacy Selke
1Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-6320, USA. jannapat@uw.edu
Objective:
To compare genital HSV shedding among HIV-positive and HIV-negative women.
Methods:
Women with and without known HIV infection who delivered at the University of Washington Medical Center between 1989-1996 had HSV serologies done as part of clinical care. Genital swabs from HSV-2-seropositive women were evaluated by real-time quantitative HSV DNA PCR.
Results:
HSV-2 seroprevalence was 71% and 30% among 75 HIV-positive and 3051 HIV-negative women, respectively, (P < .001). HSV was detected at delivery in the genital tract of 30.8% of HIV-seropositive versus 9.5% of HIV-negative women (RR = 3.2, 95% CI 1.6 to 6.5, P = .001). The number of virion copies shed per mL was similar (log 3.54 for HIV positive versus 3.90 for HIV negative, P = .99).
Conclusions:
Our study demonstrated that HIV-, HSV-2-coinfected women are more likely to shed HSV at delivery.
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