Low Prevalence of Helminth Infection among HIV Patients in Cameroon

Helminth infections present one of the most common parasitic infections worldwide with a greater proportion occurring in the less developed areas of the world like Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest regional prevalence of HIV in the world. Due to the overlapping geographical distribution of these infections, coinfection between helminths and HIV are likely to be common. This study was therefore designed to determine the prevalence of helminth infection among HIV patients in Cameroon and to determine the effect on helminth infection in HIV by measuring the CD4+ T cell count. Helminth infection was determined in faecal specimen by the formol ether concentration technique and quantifies with the Kato Katz technique. CD4+ T cell count were determined with a BD FASCount™. Among the 241 HIV-positive patients that were enrolled into the study, 6(2.5%) were coinfected with helminths. Among those coinfected with helminths, 2(33.3%) were infected with Ascaris lumbricoides, 2(33.3%) with Trichuris trichiura, 1(16.7%) with Strongyloides stercoralis and 1(16.7%) with Schistosoma mansoni. Dual infection with more than one helminth was not observed in the study. The mean egg intensity were 1944, 420, 144 for the specimen which contained Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura and Schistosoma mansoni ova respectively. The mean CD4+ T cell count among helminth coinfected patients was 627.93 cells/μl. no significant association between CD4+ T cell count and helminth infection was observed (P = 0.4815), neither was there any significant association between CD4+ T cell count in co-infected patients and patients without helminth infection (P = 0.1110). We came to the conclusion that the prevalence of helminth infection among HIV patients in study population was low and the influence of helminth infection on the outcome of HIV may be limited.

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