Abstract:The aim of this study was to use the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of anaemia to determine prevalence of anaemia among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients on the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and those that are HAART naive. Haemoglobin concentration was measured in 457 HIV patients consisting of 217 patients on HAART (86 males and 131 females) and 240 HAART naive patients (106 males and 134 females). According to WHO criteria, anaemia was defined as a haemoglobin concentration below 12g/dl in women and below 13g/dl in men. The anaemic HIV patients were further categorized according to WHO/ACTG anaemia toxicity grades. An overall anaemia prevalence of 60.61% was observed. The prevalence of anaemia was significantly higher among HAART naive patients (69.17%) than in HIV patients on HAART (51.15%) (P < 0.001). The prevalence of anaemia differ significantly (P < 0.05) between males and females of HAART naive patients with males (76.42%) having higher prevalence than females (63.43%). The WHO/ACTG categorization showed the same pattern between HIV patients on HAART and those that were HAART naive. Conclusively, the overall prevalence of anaemia was 60.61% among HIV patients. HAART naive patients have higher prevalence as well as males in this group. The WHO definition of anaemia is recommended as this will give the true prevalence of anaemia and allow for policy and interventions to address it. _______________________________________________________________________________________

Against the background that some human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients on the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) still experience anaemia, some possible reasons for this were investigated. Blood was collected from 50 newly diagnosed treatment naive HIV-infected patients, 100 HIV-infected patients on HAART and 30 apparently healthy HIV seronegative individuals that served as controls. Haemotocrit values, red blood cell distribution width (RDW) and the presence of antibodies to the drugs in the HAART regimen were determined. The mean ± standard deviation of haematocrit values of HAART naive HIV patients (36.90 ± 5.61%) and those on HAART (37.20 ± 6.20%) were significantly lower compared to controls (41.50 ± 5.88%) (p = 0.001), though the difference between HIV patients on HAART and those that were HAART naive was not significant (p = 0.836). Although, the RDW of HIV patients were lower than controls, the difference was only significant (p = 0.026) between controls (17.00 ± 6.01%) and HAART naive HIV patients (15.00 ± 1.87). A total of 81 (81%) out of the 100 HIV patients on HAART had antibodies to one or more of the HAART drugs. Antibodies to nevirapine (58%) was higher compared to stavudine (44.6) and zidovudine (42%) ( p = < 0.05). There was no significant improvement in haematocrit of HIV patients on HAART over HAART naive HIV patients. Use of zidovudine, nutritional deficiency and presence of antibodies to the HAART drugs may have been responsible (Afr. J. Biomed. Res. 11: 33 -37)