Data and archival plasma samples from the Uganda HIV/AIDS serobehavioral survey (UHSBS) conducted in 2004/05 [10 (link), 11 (link)] were retrieved for this study. The UHSBS was a weighted nationally-representative population-based sample of people from Uganda. Uganda’s 56 districts were grouped into 9 geographical regions, of which 8 consisted of 5–8 neighboring districts and one region consisted of one district – Kampala, which is also the capital city of Uganda. The UHSBS was designed to be statistically adequate to provide robust estimates for key HIV/AIDS indicators nationally and regionally. Participants were selected using a two-stage non-stratified cluster sample survey design. The first-stage involved randomly selecting 417 census enumeration areas (primary sampling units) from the enumeration area list constructed for the Uganda National Census of 2002 [12 ]. In the second-stage, 25 households were randomly selected from each enumeration area for a total of 10, 437 households [10 (link), 11 (link)]. Household members aged 15–59 years were invited to answer structured pre-coded interviewer-administered household- and individual- questionnaire about their age, gender, residence, religion, marital-status, attained level of formal education, current occupation, and household assets. A venous blood sample was drawn from participants who consented for HIV, syphilis, HSV2, and HBV serology, which were done using standard commercial assays [10 (link)], and for storage for future tests.
For the current study, we randomly selected 3097 (17.8%) from 19,656 participants in the UHSBS cohort, of whom 2705 were tested serologically for anti-HHV8 antibodies. We excluded from this study participants who only had filter paper dry bloodspot samples (n=81), whose samples were exhausted (n=3), who refused to be tested in future studies (n=2), and those whose samples could not be found in the repository in Uganda (n=306).