Low levels of frailty in HIV-positive older adults on antiretroviral therapy in northern Tanzania.

There are over 3 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) aged 50 and over living with HIV. HIV and combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) exposure may accelerate the ageing in this population, and thus increase the prevalence of premature frailty. There is a paucity of data on the prevalence of frailty in an older HIV + population in SSA and screening and diagnostic tools to identify frailty in SSA. Patients aged ≥ 50 were recruited from a free Government HIV clinic in Tanzania. Frailty assessments were completed, using 3 diagnostic and screening tools: the Fried frailty phenotype (FFP), Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) and Brief Frailty Instrument for Tanzania (B-FIT 2). The 145 patients recruited had a mean CD4 + of 494.84 cells/µL, 99.3% were receiving cART and 72.6% were virally suppressed. The prevalence of frailty by FFP was 2.758%. FFP frailty was significantly associated with female gender (p = 0.006), marital status (p = 0.007) and age (p = 0.038). Weight loss was the most common FFP domain failure. The prevalence of frailty using the B-FIT 2 and the CFS was 0.68%. The B-FIT 2 correlated with BMI (r = - 0.467, p = 0.0001) and CD4 count in females (r = - 0.244, p = 0.02). There is an absence of frailty in this population, as compared to other clinical studies. This may be due to the high standard of HIV care at this Government clinic. Undernutrition may be an important contributor to frailty. It is unclear which tool is most accurate for detecting the prevalence of frailty in this setting as levels of correlation are low.

Evaluation of a low-resource screening strategy for ophthalmic pathologies and associated neurological morbidity in an older Tanzanian HIV-positive population.

Globally, 43 million people are living with HIV, 90% in developing countries. Increasing life expectancy with combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) results in chronic complications, including HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) and eye diseases. HAND screening is currently challenging. Our aim was to evaluate clinical utility of retinopathy as a screening measure of HAND in older cART-treated individuals in Tanzania and feasibility of smartphone-based retinal screening in this low-resource setting. A cross-sectional systematic sample aged ≥ 50-years attending routine HIV follow-up in Tanzania were comprehensively assessed for HAND by American Academy of Neurology criteria and received ophthalmic assessment including smartphone-based retinal imaging. HAND and ophthalmic assessments were independent and blinded. Diagnostic accuracy was evaluated by AUROC curves. Of 129 individuals assessed, 69.8% were visually impaired. Thirteen had retinopathy. HAND prevalence was 66.7%. Retinopathy was significantly associated with HAND but HIV-disease factors (CD4, viral load) were not. Diagnostic accuracy of retinopathy for HAND was poor (AUROC 0.545-0.617) but specificity and positive predictive value were high. We conclude that ocular pathology and HAND appear highly prevalent in this low-resource setting. Although retinal screening cannot be used alone identify HAND, prioritization of individuals with abnormal retinal screening is a potential strategy in low-resource settings.