Determinants of immunological recovery following HAART among severely immunosuppressed patients at enrolment to care in Northern Ethiopia: a retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify determinants of immunological recovery following highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) among severely immunosuppressed patients at enrolment to care in Northern Ethiopia. METHODS: A retrospective study. SETTING: The study was done in Tigray Region, Northern Ethiopia. PARTICIPANTS: The study was done among severely immunosuppressed (<200 CD4 cells/mm3) individuals at initial enrolment to care and whose samples were sent for viral load determination from April 2015 to March 2019 in Tigray Health Research Institute. MAIN OUTCOMES: The main outcome variable was immunological recovery, modelled using binary logistic regression. RESULTS: Among the 9687 patients with severe immunosuppression at enrolment, 2746 (28.35%, 95% CI 27.45% to 29.26%) had immunological recovery following HAART for at least 6 months. Male gender (adjusted OR (AOR)=0.50, p<0.001), age 20-34 years old (AOR=0.33, p<0.001), age ≥50 years old (AOR=0.26, p<0.001), WHO clinical stage III (OR=0.68, p=0.036) and viral non-suppression (AOR=0.38, p<0.001) were strong predictors of immunological failure. CONCLUSIONS: Immunological recovery following HAART was low among severely immunosuppressed individuals at enrolment to care. Gender, age, WHO stage III and viral non-suppression were determinants of immunological recovery. Male patients, adolescents and virally non-suppressed patients should be identified as groups at higher risk for immunological failure. Therefore, greater support and intensive counselling should be prioritised among adolescents, men and virally non-suppressed patients for better immunological recovery.

Prevalence and drug resistance pattern of Listeria monocytogenes among pregnant women in Tigray region, Northern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility test of Listeria monocytogenes among pregnant women in Tigray region, Ethiopia. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of L. monocytogenes among pregnant women was found to be (8.5%; 12/141). With regard to the socio-demographic characteristics, a high prevalence of L. monocytogenes was observed in the age group of 20-24 years (18.6%; 8/43), rural dwellers (10%; 3/30), secondary school (9.6%; 5/52), and housewives (11.4%;10/88). A high drug resistance rate was observed to penicillin G (66.7%), clindamycin (66.7%), amoxicillin (50%) and vancomycin (50%). However, isolates were relatively sensitive to ciprofloxacin (75%), erythromycin (75%), trimethoprim/sulphamethaxazole (66.7%) and chloramphenicol (60%).