SEMEN ABNORMALITY AND CHLAMYDIA TRACHOMATIS ANTIBODIES AMONG MALE PATIENTS ATTENDING FERTILITY CLINICS IN NNEWI, ANAMBRA STATE.

Against the background of increasing cases of male infertility in our community, this study was carried out to screen the serum of male patients for the presence of Chlamydia trachomatis antibodies and also analyse their semen samples for abnormalities. Five hundred (500) subjects aged between 25-49 years, were randomly recruited for the study. Four hundred (400) had infertility as their main complaint while the remaining 100 without complaint served as controls. Semen and blood samples were collected from each of the subjects. The semen samples were examined for abnormalities using Makler counting method. The blood samples were allowed to clot and the serum collected for sero-diagnosis using immunoCombChlamydia trachomatis kits (Inverness medical innovations, ORGENICS, Israel). An overall Chlamydia trachomatis sero-prevalence rate of 13.0% out of 500 patients were positive. Oligozoospermia was the highest form of abnormality recorded 49(29.3%) among the subjects and the least was azoospermia 1(2.9%). Oligozoospemia was more in age group 25-29 years old 17 (34.7%). Although the prevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis antibody in this study is low, this organism may play contributory roles in infertility and so effort should be made to screen patients attending fertility clinics routinely for it.