Clinical and Epidemiological Characteristics of Patients With Hiv Infection

Abstract

According to the latest data, in early 2018, 75% of HIV-positive people in the world knew about their HIV status (70% in early 2017); 79% of those who knew about their HIV status received treatment, 81% of those who received antiretroviral therapy have achieved an undetectable level of HIV viral load in the blood, i.e. less than 1000 RNA copies / ml. The purpose of the work is to find out the current clinical and epidemiological features of HIV infection, including in the Bukovina region. Materials and Methods: this prospective study for 2016 – 2018 included 292 HIV patients undergoing outpatient monitoring at the Chernivtsi Regional Center for AIDS Prevention and Control. All the subjects gave voluntary informed consent to participate in the study. Results and Discussion: Young people (25 – 44 years old) were predominantly included in the study; their total share among men was 88.3% and among women – 76.0%. There were slightly more female patients under 24 years of age (10.6% of female individuals versus 4.3% of male individuals) and within the 45-55 year old group (13.4% female participants versus 7.4% of male individuals). Clinical signs of stage III HIV infection found in 108 people included the manifestations of general intoxication syndrome forcing the participants to stay down in the bed up to a half a day. All the participants demonstrated the weight loss over 10% of that initially established; 34 (31.5%) patients had "unexplained" chronic diarrhoea over 3 times a day, which lasted more than a month. For 118 HIV-positive patients of the IV clinical stage, the fatigue syndrome (unexplained weight loss (more than 10% for 6 months) was the most indicative; this condition forced them to stay in bed for more than a half a day. Conclusions: Markers of hemocontact viral hepatitis were detected in 59.1% of patients with clinical stage I and II HIV infection, in 55.6% of the patients with III stage HIV and in 61.0% with stage IV of the disease.