Background HIV status has commonly been found to affect the serum lipid profile. Objectives The aim of this study was to determine the effect of HIV infection on lipid metabolism; such information may be used to improve the management of HIV‐infected patients. Methods Samples were collected from December 2005 to May 2006 at Yaounde University Teaching Hospital, Yaounde, Cameroon. Lipid parameters were obtained using colorimetric enzyme assays, while low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLC) values were calculated using the formula of Friedewald et al. (1972) and atherogenicity index by total cholesterol (TC)/high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC) and LDLC/HDLC ratios. Results HIV infection was most prevalent in subjects aged 31 to 49 years. Most of the HIV‐positive patients belonged to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categories B (43.0%) and C (30.23%). Compared with control subjects, patients with CD4 counts<50 cells/μL had significantly lower TC (P<0.0001) and LDLC (P<0.0001) but significantly higher triglyceride (TG) values (P<0.001) and a higher atherogenicity index for TC/HDLC (P<0.01) and HDLC/LDLC (P=0.02); patients with CD4 counts of 50–199 cells/μL had significantly lower TC (P<0.001) and significantly higher TG values (P<0.001); patients with CD4 counts of 200–350 cells/μL had significantly higher TG (P=0.003) and a higher atherogenicity index for TC/HDLC (P<0.0002) and HDLC/LDLC (P=0.04); and those with CD4 counts >350 cells/μL had a higher atherogenicity index for TC/HDLC (P<0.0001) and HDLC/LDLC (P<0.001). HDLC was significantly lower in HIV‐positive patients irrespective of the CD4 cell count. Lipid parameters were also influenced by the presence of opportunistic infections (OIs). Conclusion HIV infection is associated with dyslipidaemia, and becomes increasingly debilitating as immunodeficiency progresses. HDLC was found to be lower than in controls in the early stages of HIV infection, while TG and the atherogenicity index increased and TC and LDLC decreased in the advanced stages of immunodeficiency.

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Context: The residual risk of HIV transmission is still a real problem into the transfusional settings of limited resources countries. Blood banks of African countries confront the risk of transmitting HIV to recipients. The objective of this study is to estimate the residual risk of HIV in African transfusion settings and to compare this residual risk with that of other countries in the South (developping countries). Methods: This study resulted of a systematic review with meta-analysis of data from several comprehensive studies carried out between 2011 and 2017 whose purpose was focused on the residual risk of HIV transmission through blood transfusion. The studies on the residual risk were systematically searched in the different databases (PubMed, Medline and Google Scholar). The eligibility criteria were based on published studies which had blood donors as participants, looking at the residual risk of HIV in developing countries and the technique was based on the search for antibodies-P24 Antigen of the HIV or on nucleic acid (RNA) testing. Studies carried out before 2011 and after 2017 were excluded. Studies in rich countries were also excluded. The Cochrane tool was used to assess the risk of bias. Results: A total of 327,278 seronegative donors (for 12 eligible studies) were admitted for this study, i.e. 75.5% of men and 24.5% of women. The median age of all donors was 30.4 years. For studies carried out in the Africa zone (Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zimbabwe), 327,278 donors were initially seronegative, of which 626 were found to be positive. Indeed, out of 742 incident cases in this study from African countries and other countries of the South, 84.4% of positive donors came from African studies and 15.6% of positive donors came from other countries of the South in this study. The residual risk (RR) of HIV in Africa has been estimated at 13 per 1,000,000 donations, with an incidence rate (IR) of 21.5 per 100,000 person-years. And in the other countries of the South (Brazil, Croatia, India, Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan), the RR of HIV has been estimated at 0.6 per 1,000,000 donations, or an incidence rate of 1.1 per 100,000 person-years. Conclusion: The residual risk of HIV in the transfusion environment is still high and still persists in blood banks in southern countries in general and in Africa in particular.

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Background The high endemicity of transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs) in sub-Saharan Africa is a real public health problem. To reduce the risk of HIV transmission through blood donation, the NBTC of Gabon has launched in recent years a reorganization of its blood transfusion system. This study aims to characterize the molecular strains of HIV-1 circulating in donors and to estimate the risk of viral transmission. Materials and methods A cross-sectional study was carried out during the period from August 2020 to August 2021 among 381 donors who had agreed to donate blood at the National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC). Viral load was determined by Abbott Real-Time (Abbott m2000®, Abbott) and sequencing by the Sanger method (ABI 3500 Hitachi®). The phylogenetic tree was constructed by MEGA X software. Data were checked, entered, and analyzed using SPSS version 21.0 software, with p ≤ 0.05 considered statistically significant. Results A total of 381 donors were enrolled in the study. Among the 359 seronegative donors, five (5) seronegative donors were detected positive for HIV-1 using Real-Time PCR. The residual risk was 648 per 1,000,000 donations. The prevalence of residual infection was 1.4% [0,01; 0,03]. Sixteen (16) samples were sequenced. The strains obtained were CRF02_AG (50%), subtype A1 (18.8%), subtype G (12.5%), CRF45_cpx (12.5%) and subtype F2 (6.2%). Six sequences clustered with A1, G, CRF02_AG, and CRF45_cpx subtypes. Conclusion The residual risk of HIV-1 transmission by blood transfusion remains a concern in the Gabonese transfusional settings. A policy based on improving the current screening strategy would involve the implementation of the nucleic acid test (NAT) in order to optimize the safety of the donation by detecting the HIV-1 subtypes in circulation in the donors.