Current HIV Research - Volume 13, Issue 4, 2015

Background: Improved viral detections by the real time PCR over the manual assays have been reported by various manufacturers. However, discrepancies and discordance between different platforms targeting the same pathogen have also been observed at different settings. Methods: We used an analytical study design to compare the performance of the Cobas Taqman /Cobas Ampliprep version 2.0 against the standar Read More

Background: Nigeria bears nearly 10% of the global burden of HIV/AIDS. Most of the AIDS patients dwell in the part of Nigeria known as the “North Central” geopolitical region. Sustaining HIV patients in this high risk region is critical for the overall success of the ART program in Nigeria. We assessed the level of adherence to ART and adherence determinants among participants who had been on ART for an average of three Read More

Background: Virological suppression is the main goal of antiretroviral therapy. To achieve this goal, efficient interventions that promote treatment adherence are needed. This study was aimed at exploring the impact of peer-education on virological outcomes in Northern Nigeria. Methods: A randomized controlled trial (RCT) among patients receiving antiretroviral treatment was conducted in 2 phases between August 2006 an Read More

Background: Despite improvement in HIV prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), there are still over 1,500 African infants newly infected daily. PMTCT elimination requires antiretroviral therapy (ART) throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding periods, while early infant diagnosis (EID) of HIV implies early treatment for those infected. Our study aimed at assessing the utility of EID program data in evaluating the im Read More

Background: Hepatitis B (HBV) and Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are both bloodborne viruses. Markers of either active or past HBV infection are present in many HIV infected patients. Worldwide, HBV prevalence varies geographically and endemicity is classified as low (<2%) or high (>8%). Genotypically, prevalence varies among different populations, with genotype A having a wide distribution. In Kenya, the prev Read More

Background: Long-term retention is a crucial component of HIV care because treatment success can only be measured among retained patients. Understanding determinants of retention will inform retention strategies. We evaluated the correlates of retention in a large HIV program in Nigeria. Methods: We reviewed quality of care data for 5320 randomly selected HIV-positive adults aged ≥15 years enrolled in 37 treatm Read More

Background: Performance of Genotype MTBDRplus assay against Lowenstein Jensen (LJ) proportion method of Drug Susceptibility Testing (DST) in detection of resistance among clinical mycobacteria isolates to rifampicin (RMP) and isoniazid (INH) was evaluated in Ilorin, Nigeria. Methods: This retrospective study characterized one hundred mycobacteria isolates from pulmonary TB patients, stored on LJ medium and subculture Read More

Background: The detection of acute HIV infection (AHI) among high risk populations can help reduce secondary transmission of HIV. The nucleic acid testing (NAT) can shorten the test window period by up to 7-12 days. In this study, we describe an in-house NAT based on the multiplex nested RT-PCR method to detect the HIV RNA. We also evaluated it in a high risk cohort in Beijing. Methods: Four primer pairs were designed an Read More

Aichi viruses (AiV) have been detected in patients with diarrheal diseases (DD). The aim of this study was to assess AiV infection rates in hospitalized children with DD, including 123 HIV-1 seropositive and 125 HIV-1 seronegative patients, in two public pediatric hospitals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. AiV was investigated by nested RT-PCR. The AiV-positive samples were also tested for specie A rotavirus, norovirus, astrovirus, enteric adeno Read More