A Survey for COVID-19 Among HIV/AIDS Patients in Two Districts of Wuhan, China

Background: There were over 49 thousand Coronavirus infected diseases-19(COVID-19) patients in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China, the center of epidemic of the disease. Over 5000 HIV/AIDS patients live in Wuhan. No data on the morbidity of COVID-19 in HIV/AIDS patients have been published to date. Methods: In this study, we investigated 1178 HIV/AIDS patients in two central districts in Wuhan city. Whether they have any clinical presentations and whether they contacted any confirmed COVID-19 patients were inquired. The results for nucleic acid test (NAT) of SARS-CoV-2 and CT scan in those with clinical symptoms or contact history were investigated. The antiretroviral regimens of all these patients and other information, like age, sex, CD4+T cell counts (CD4 counts), HIV viral load (HIV-VL) were also collected. The risk factors for the COVID-19 in HIV/AIDS patients were analyzed. Findings: We found 12 individuals in 1174 HIV/AIDS patients who presented clinical symptoms, and 8 of them were confirmed COVID-19. Six of them were NAT confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, and 2 were clinical confirmed cases. Six of the 8 COVID-19 patients had CD4 counts> 350/µl, and 2 with CD4 counts between 101-350/µl. All of the 8 patients have a low HIV-VL<20 copies/ml. The older age is the risk factor to occur COVID-19 in HIV/AIDS. All the 8 COVID-19 patients were from 947 individuals (0.84%) who took NRTI+NNRTI as antiretroviral regimen. In those who have no symptoms, there were another 9 HIV/AIDS patients had close contact with confirmed COVID-19 patients, and only 1 of them was confirmed positive by NAT. Interpretation: Our findings indicated that the compromised immunity might be the reason that HIV/AIDS patients did not occur inflammatory changes and clinical symptoms, which support the early usage of corticosteroids in treatment for COVID-19. At the same time, the usage of LPV/r may potentially help to prevent or treat COVID-19.Funding Statement: This work was supported by the grant of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81471940) to Y.F.Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University Institutional Review Board and the need for informed consent was waived.