BMC Public Health 2009, 9:437 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/437 or number of sexual partners. The study revealed a higher colonisation rate among the age group 30-34 years (32.1%) but lower (15.4%) in women aged less than 20 years, however the difference was not statistically signifi- cant (P > 0.05). GBS colonisation was also more prevalent among women with no formal education when compared with those with secondary education, post secondary and primary education however this was not statistically sig- nificant (P > 0.05). Of the 300 women investigated, the majority (93%) reported having one sexual partner while 21(7%) had multiple sexual partners in the last one year preceding the study. GBS colonisation did not differ sig- nificantly with marital status, being 33.3% among divorced women, 23.8% among married and 19.3% among single women (P > 0.05). (15.4%), P < 0.05. The parity ranged from zero to seven with parity mean of 0.88. Colonisation rate was higher (50%) in women who had delivered four or more times and lower in women who had delivered once (19.8%). However, this difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Women with previous history of stillbirth had higher rate (28.6%) of GBS colonisation followed by those with nor- mal previous obstetric history (23.2%) and with history of spontaneous abortion (11.1%) (P > 0.05). No GBS colo- nisation was observed in women with previous history of premature labour. Sixty four (23.4%) of the women with GBS colonisation had no history of dysuria. In this study urine culture was not done in patients with dysuria. Table 2 shows maternal obstetric factors and HIV status in relation to GBS colonisation. Women with gestation age between 41 and 42 weeks were found to have significantly higher colonisation rate (46.7%), followed by those with gestational ages of 37-38 weeks (23.6%) and 39-40 weeks HIV infection was detected in 24/300 (8%) of the study population, among whom 2/24 (8.3%) had GBS coloni- sation (P > 0.05) and one had CD4 T-cell count less than 200 cells/μL and the other had CD4 T-cell count above 200 cells/μl. Table 2: Association between obstetric factors, HIV infection and GBS colonisation among pregnant women n = 300 Total Number GBS isolated Percentages P-value Variable Gestational age 37-38 39-40 41-42 Parity 0 1 2 3 4 ≥ 5 Previous obstetric history Normal healthy baby Premature Spontaneous abortion Stillbirth Dysuria No Yes Vaginal discharge No Yes HIV infection No Yes *125 out of 300 pregnant women were primigravida and had no previous obstetric history. 220 65 15 138 91 51 12 6 2 137 6 18 14 273 27 284 16 276 24 52 10 7 33 18 11 3 3 1 32 0 2 4 64 5 66 3 67 2 23.6 15.4 46.7 23.9 19.8 21.6 25 50 50 23.2 0 11.1 28.6 23.4 18.5 23.2 18.8 24.3 8.3 0.03 0.45 0.44 0.38 0.67 0.08 Page 4 of 7 (page number not for citation purposes)