Taku O, Businge CB, Mdaka ML, et al. - Researchers examined women from rural Eastern Cape, South Africa for the prevalence of high-risk (HR) human papillomavirus (HPV) and factors associated with HR-HPV infection. Using Hybrid Capture-2 assay in cervical specimens from 417 women aged ≥ 30 years (median: 46 years) recruited from a community health clinic in the Eastern Cape, they identified HR-HPV prevalence of 28.5% (119/417). This suggests a high HR-HPV prevalence among these women. Significantly higher HR-HPV prevalence was observed among HIV-positive women than HIV-negative women (40.6%, 63/155 vs 21.4%, 56/262 respectively). Increased risk of HR-HPV infection was observed among women having vaginal discharge currently/previous week. HIV-positive women vs HIV-negative women exhibited significantly higher HR-HPV viral load regardless of cervical cytology results.