Former illegal blood donation in the past decade has caused HIV outbreaks in some rural areas in China. Other HIV associated virus infections, such as human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) in such areas are still not well defined. In order to explore HHV8 and HCV seroprevalence and potential risk factors in such areas, a cross-sectional study with 305 HIV positive and 315 HIV negative subjects recruited f...

Needle exchange programs (NEPs) are designed to prevent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission among injection drug users. Although most studies report beneficial effects in terms of behavior modification, a direct assessment of the effectiveness of NEPs in preventing HIV infection has been lacking. A cohort study was conducted to assess the association between risk behaviors and HIV s...

OBJECTIVE The study aimed to describe the evolution of the seroprevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients included in two cohorts in Taiwan. METHODS We retrospectively collected the information on demographic and clinical characteristics of 4,025 and 3,856 HIV-positive Taiwanese, who were aged 18 years or older at designated hospitals arou...

This study examined the prevalence of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in pregnant women in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Between April and July 2004, antenatal attendees at two of the largest maternity clinics in Kinshasa were tested to identify HIV status, syphilis, Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) and Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG). HIV seroprevalence was 1....

BACKGROUND Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) share common routes of infection and as such, co-infection is expected. Co-infection of the two viruses is of great medical importance as it determines the effect of drugs used for treatment at various stages. OBJECTIVE This interplay between HIV and HCV sets the tone for the objective of this study which is to ascertai...

BACKGROUND With increased availability of antibiotics and antifungal agents hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections are becoming a cause for significant concern in HIV infected children. We determined the seroprevalence and risk factors for HBV and HCV among HIV infected children aged 18 months to 17 years, attending the Paediatric HIV Care and Treatment Center (CTC) at M...

INTRODUCTION Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has improved survival of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients. Concurrent morbidities from liver diseases among these patients have also been observed due to co-infection with hepatitis B and C viruses (HBV and HCV). HAART reduces liver-associated morbidities and mortalities in such patients. Unfortunately free testing of HBV and ...

AIM To document the epidemiologic patterns and risk factors of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in Mali in order to develop prevention means for both diseases. METHODS Two prospective studies were conducted in Bamako in 2009 among 1000 pregnant women (i.e., young women) who consulted six reference health centers, and in 2010, among 231 older women who ...

Passive surveillance of infectious diseases with a high percentage of asymptomatic cases or long incubation periods, such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), does not reflect the current transmission dynamics. Thus, a multi-strategic surveillance, such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) sentinel surveillance proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO), is necessary. The Bra...

To estimate the seroprevalence of HCV infection among HIV-infected haemophiliacs and to demonstrate the most prevalent HCV genotype, 47 HIV-infected haemophilia patients were screened for anti-HCV antibodies. By performing polymerase chain reaction and DNA enzyme immunoassay, HCV-RNA was detected with subsequent genotyping. Seroprevalence of anti-HCV antibodies was 66.0%. Of 31 HCV/HIV co-infec...