Occurrence of hepatitis b, hepatitis c and treponemal coinfection in people living with hiv

Morbidity and mortality of HIV positive patients depends on their response to antiretroviral therapy. Early detection and treatment of co-infection may lead to better outcome as indicated by immune restoration. The present cross- sectional study was undertaken to assess occurrence of coinfections of HBV, HCV and Syphilis and its impact on immune response in HIV positive patients. A total of 200 HIV positive patients receiving ART at the centre of SGH Pune were randomly selected for this study. Blood sample which is routinely collected for CD4 count was taken for our study. No extra sample was taken. This group comprised of 102 male 97 female and one transgender. The age group included in the study was 3years to 76years. A total of 25.5% (51/200) of the patients were tested positive for co-infections. 60.78% (31/51) were positive for Hepatitis B, 3.92% (2/51) for Hepatitis C, 35.29% (18/51) for Syphilis. To study the effect of co-infection on immune response, patient's periodic CD4 count data was analyzed. CD4 count ranged from 15 to 4329 with mean of 392 while in the 51 co-infected patients CD4 count ranged from 3 to 1044 mean 354). A signicant difference in CD4 count was observed between the non-co-infected and co-infected groups. A constantly decrementing trend of CD4 count was the cardinal nding in patients with underlying co-infection.