Opportunistic viral infections such as Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) are often prevalent in HIV patients undergoing antiretroviral therapy (ART) thereby shortening the life span of infected patients. The co-infection of CMV, HBV and HCV among HIV positive patients attending ART clinics across hospitals in Ekiti State, Nigeria, were studied. Ninety-two (92) blood samples from HIV positive individuals (males, pregnant females and non-pregnant females) were collected and serologically screened for CMV antibodies (IgM) using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) while HBV and HCV surface antigen were determined using standard test kit. The viral loads were determined using COBAS® AmpliPrep / COBAS® TaqMan® systems. The occurrence of single or coinfection of HIV-patients with respect to their sampling class were also determined and expressed in percentage. Of samples screened, the total positive occurrence rates of 23.16±1.78%, 11.20±1.46% and 30.21±2.67% were observed for CMV, HBV and HCV while 35.43±1.85% of total respondents tested negative to all the viruses screened in this study. The total viral loads were 10184 copies/ml for CMV, 5679 copies/ml for HBV and 12678 copies/ml for HCV. For the coinfections, respondents with HBV+HCV had a total occurrence of 31.80±2.25% (13294 copies/ml) while HCV+CMV had total occurrence of 44.40±3.18% (51783 copies/ml), CMV+HBV had total occurrence of 19.25±1.67% (8679 copies/ml) and CMV+HCV+HBV had a total occurrence of 9.50±1.35% (586 copies/ml). This high prevalence rate of CMV with Hepatitis co-infection among these HIV positive individuals further support the role of viral reactivation in immunocompromised patients.
April 2, 2024
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