Abstract:
The estimation of the duration of HIV infection among newly enrolled HIV infected patients has become important
because of clinical implications. Since many patients with HIV-1 infection are not usually diagnosed until they
present with symptoms, the need to determine the factors associated with long-standing infection is becoming
increasingly important for the epidemiologic purposes and of early access to HAART. We determine the factors
associated with long-standing HIV infection in HAART naïve patients. One hundred and five cryopreserved
plasma samples randomly selected from sample frame of 230 HIV-1 infected treatment-naïve patients at the adult
ART clinic of the Jos University Teaching Hospital, were tested using enzyme immunoassay (EIA)-avidity index
assay. Of the 105 samples, 100 were successfully tested. Basic demographic (age, sex, residence, education level,
marital status), spouse on ARV, spouse HIV status), mode of transmission, WHO clinical staging, co-infections,
HIV-1 viral load, and CD4+cell count results were obtained and analyzed using Stata software version 10.1.
Majority of the patients had long-standing HIV-1 infection and were late presenters to the ART treatment Centre.
Both the univariate and multivariate analyses showed that low CD4+ cell count was associated with the longstanding
HIV infection at 95% CI 5.34 (1.30-21.92). Early detection of HIV-1 infection and access to ART is
necessary to avoid rapid decline of CD4+ cell count resulting in accelerated HIV disease progression and
consequent development of opportunistic infections.
