Subject(s)
Infectious Disease Medicine/standards , Osteomyelitis/diagnosis , Osteomyelitis/therapy , Spinal Diseases/diagnosis , Spinal Diseases/therapy , Humans , Infectious Disease Medicine/methods , Infectious Disease Medicine/organization & administration , Orthopedics/methods , Orthopedics/organization & administration , Orthopedics/standards , Osteomyelitis/epidemiology , Spinal Diseases/epidemiology , Tunisia/epidemiologyABSTRACT
AIM: To determine the prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in a cohort of patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) and to compare risk factors. METHODS: Multicenter retrospective study from infectious diseases department in Tunisia. We examined sera from HIV patients followed in these centers. Diagnosis of HCV infection was based on third generation enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test. RESULTS: 362 HIV-1 patients were included in the study. The mean age was 35,5 years. 272 patients (75.13%) were male. Sexual transmission of HIV was the main risk factor (56.3%). 144 patients (39.7%) had antibodies against HCV, mainly in patients with history of intravenous drug abuse (78.4%). Quantitative evaluation of hepatitis C virus RNA was done only in 3 patients. CONCLUSION: HCV-HIV coinfection in tunisian patients occurs frequently, due to the same ways of transmission. More studies are needed to focus on sexual transmission of hepatitis C virus in order to prevent such infections rather than interferon-based therapies.
