Abstract

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Human Papillomavirus (HPV), is a DNA virus from the family Papillomaviridae (De, Sanjosé et al., 2018 and Virus Taxonomy, 2018). Capable of causing abnormal tissue growth, leading to warts and other changes to cells; thus, it is the major cause of cervical cancers globally. In Nigeria, the increase in the rate of cervical cancer infections and associated deaths is alarming. Thus, the present review was conducted to enrich the data bank of information on HPV in circulation amongst women, with particular focus on Nigeria. Adhering to the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions/Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) instructions for documenting meta-analysis and systematic reviews, this study randomly sampled publications related to human papillomavirus in Nigeria from relevant databases, particularly published reviews and researches published on Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus, with a cross-sectional approach. From a total of 220 identified studies, 18 pooled data studies were extracted using the developed systematic review protocol as a guide, which were subsequently used to analyze the extent of research on HPV performed in Nigeria with regards to the location. Findings by Manga et al., (2015); Aondona et al., (2021) uncovered that the common strains of HPV circulated within Nigeria are HPV 16, 18, 31, 33, 35 and 45. The study therefore recommended that research and sensitization programme on HPV be conducted in all the six (6) geopolitical zones of the country to create awareness and to suggest possible preventive measures that may mitigate the increasing rate of infection with cervical cancer within the country.

Keywords: Cervical cancer, HPV, virus, warts