Filarial/human immunodeficiency virus coinfection in urban southern India.
The disease course of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is often altered by existing or newly acquired coinfections. Treatment or prevention of these concomitant infections often improves the quality and duration of life of HIV-infected persons. The impact of helminth infections on infections with HIV is less clear. However, HIV is frequently most problematic in areas where helminth infections are common. In advance of the widespread distribution of drugs for elimination of lymphatic filariasis, we assessed the prevalence of active Wuchereria bancrofti infection among HIV-positive patients in Chennai, India at two time points separated by four years. We found that the overall prevalence of W. bancrofti infections among HIV-positive persons was 5-9.5%, and there were no quantitative differences in circulating filarial antigen levels between HIV-positive and HIV-negative filarial-infected patients.
Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA. ktalaat@jhsph.edu
Kawsar R
KR
Talaat
Nagalingeswaran
N
Kumarasamy
Soumya
S
Swaminathan
Ramya
R
Gopinath
Thomas B
TB
Nutman
D000818:Animals; D000947:Antigens, Helminth / Q000097:blood; D005368:Filariasis / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D014958:Wuchereria bancrofti
D000947:Antigens, Helminth