Haematologic features of the Human Immunodefiency Virus (HIV) infection in adult Zimbabweans

Abstract

Objective: To describe the haematologic features of the HIV infection in adult Zimbabweans and compare the features in the different clinical stages of the disease. Design: Descriptive cross sectional study. Setting: Parirenyatwa Hospital, a tertiary and referral medical centre in Harare, and the blood donor clinics of the Blood Transfusion Service in Harare. Subjects: Patients attending HIV outpatients clinics or receiving inpatient care at Parirenyatwa Hospital and asymptomatic persons donating blood at the BTS Harare. Main Outcome M easures: Full blood counts and bone marrow cell counts and morphology. Results: Blood cytopenia was found in 47.5% of adults with HIV infection. The most frequent abnormalities were lymphopenia (31.5%); anaemia (30.8%); neutropenia (29.6%); thrombocytopenia (24.7%); eosinophilia (23.5%) and leucopenia (11.7%). Frequency of anaemia in the AIDS and symptomatic groups (43.4% and 24.5% respectively) was greater than in the carriers (6.7%), while the frequency of other cytopenias and of eosinophilia was about the same in all groups. There was also a general lack of association between the severity of haematologic abnormalities and the clinical stage of the disease. Conclusion: Severe haematologic changes occur frequently in HIV infection and AIDS but routine full blood count may not be helpful in the monitoring of the disease or the prediction o f onset of AIDS.

Prevalence of Anemia and Underlying Iron Status in Naive Antiretroviral Therapy HIV-Infected Children with Moderate Immune Suppression

“…[27][28][29][30] In this study, we found that half of ARV-naive Asian children without advanced HIV had anemia. Most anemic children had a mild degree of anemia.…”

A cross-sectional study of leukopenia and thrombocytopenia among Chinese adults with newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS

“…A study conducted among adult Zimbabweans showed that the prevalence of leukopenia and of thrombocytopenia was 11.7% and 24.7%, respectively (13). Leukopenia and thrombocytopenia were seen in 26.8% and 21.7% of HIV patients with CD4 counts less than 200 cells/mm 3 in India, respectively (14).…”

Infection of hematopoietic progenitor cells by HIV-1 subtype C, and its association with anemia in southern Africa

“…1 The higher anemia rates among HIV-infected individuals in southern Africa, compared with similar patients in the United States, make hematopoiesis and HIV-1C's effect on progenitor cell health an important area of investigation. [2][3][4] Recent findings by our group demonstrated that HIV-1 infection was directly associated with hematopoiesis in HIV-infected patients in Botswana, a country in southern Africa. 5 The study found direct positive associations between CD4 ϩ and CD34 ϩ cell levels, and between CD34 ϩ /CD4 ϩ dual-positive cell levels and both hemoglobin counts and colony-forming ability, as well as negative correlations between circulating viral levels and all indicators of HIV infection and hematopoietic health tested.…”