Assessment of HIV disease progression before and after initiation of anti­retroviral therapy by CD4 & CD8 T-lymphocyte count and viral load assay

Abstract

Backgrounds: As there is no published data regarding the response to Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) among HIV patients from Bangladesh. The present study was designed to determine the immunological and virological responses of HIV infected Bangladeshi adults starting ART. Objectives: To monitor the changes of CD4 and CD8 T-lymphocyte count and Viral load (VL) before and after three and six months of starting ART. Methods: 20 symptomatic HIV infected patients with CD4 T-lymphocyte count of 0.05). Before ART initiation, the mean VL was 5.25±1.19 log10 (copies/ml) among the study population which became undetectable in 15 (75%) patients after three months of ART and in another 2 (10%) patients after 6 months of ART initiation. Conclusion: Our study concluded that, ART is effective in slowing the progression of HIV infection to AIDS with good immunological and virological outcome among the ART initiators.

Keywords

• Anti-retroviral therapy
• HIV
• CD4
• CD8
• T-lymphocyte count
• Viral load