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Awoke Seyoum Tegegne,1 Mitiku Wale Muluneh,2 Setegn Bayabil Agegn,2 Hailegebrael Birhan Biresaw2 1Department of Statistics, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia; 2Department of Statistics, Debre Tabor University, Debre Tabor, EthiopiaCorrespondence: Mitiku Wale Muluneh, Tel + 251-923-23-27-68, Email mitikuwale@gmail.comBackground: Medication adherence plays a significant in the success of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). Therefore, the current investigation was conducted with the objective of comparing adherence and CD4 cell count with respect to virologic failure among HIV-infected adults under cART.Methods: A retrospective study design was conducted on 792 randomly selected HIV-infected adult patients who initiated first-line cART enrolled in the first 10 months of 2012 and followed up to August 2018 by using a simple random sampling technique based on their identification number.Results: The main outcome for the current investigation was the virologic failure which was decreased with successive visits. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for adherence and CD4 cell count change were 0.68 and 0.63 with χ2 = 21.2; p-value < 0.001 for the 12-month assessment. Similarly, these areas for the 36th and 60th month assessments were 0.71 and 0.66, with χ2 = 23.2; p-value < 0.001, and 0.73 and 0.71 with χ2 = 24.3; p-value < 0.001 for adherence and CD4 cell count, respectively.Conclusion: Pill count adherence was more accurate compared to CD4 cell count change for assessing virologic responses. Therefore, because of its easy access, simple use, cost-effectiveness, and accuracy, the adherence to cART was in favor of CD4 cell count change for monitoring the healthcare quality of HIV-infected patients.Keywords: adherence to cART, CD4 cell count, viral load, HIV, virologic failure, Ethiopia

Ayitenew Agegn Gwadu,1 Mengistu Abebe Tegegne,1 Kidist Belay Mihretu,1 Awoke Seyoum Tegegne2 1Departments of Statistics, Dire Dawa University, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia; 2Department of Statistics, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, EthiopiaCorrespondence: Awoke Seyoum Tegegne, Email bisrategebrail@yahoo.comBackground: HIV attacks the CD4 cells which are responsible for the body’s immune response to infectious agents. The main objective of this study was to identify predictors of viral load status over time among HIV patients under HAART in Zewditu Memorial Hospital.Methods: A retrospective institutional-based cohort study design was conducted on 161 HIV-infected adults under HAART whose follow-ups were from January 2014 up to December 2017. A generalized linear mixed-effects model was conducted to infer predictors of the status of viral load at 95% of CI).Results: The descriptive statistics revealed that about 55.9% of the adults under treatment had a detected viral load status. Among the potential predictors, visiting time of patients (AOR = 0.731, 95%: (0.634,0.842) and p-value < 0.01), age of patients (AOR = 1.0666, 95% CI: (1.0527,1.0917) and p-value < 0.01), weight (AOR=. 0.904, 95% CI: (0.862, 0.946) and p-value < 0.01), baseline CD4 cell count (AOR = 0.996, 95% CI: (0.994, 0.998) and P-value < 0.01), educated patients (AOR = 0.030, 95% CI: (0.002, 0.385) and p-value=0.0053), rural patients (AOR = 6.30,95% CL: (1.78, 2.25) and p-value=0.0043), working status patients (AOR = 0.5905, 95% CI: (0.547,0.638), p-value < 0.01), poor adherent patients (AOR = 1.120, 95% CI; (1.035,1.391) and p-value = 0.016) and patients disclosed the disease status (AOR = 0.195, 95% CI: (0.023, 0.818) and p-value=0.0134) significantly affected the detection status of viral loads, keeping all other covariates constant.Conclusion: The predictor variables; visiting times, the weight of patients, residence area, age of patients, educational level, clinical stages, functional status, baseline CD4 cell count, adherence status, and disclosure status of the disease statistically and significantly affected the status of viral load. Hence, health-related education should be given for patients to disclose their disease status, to be good adherents based on the prescription given to the health staff. Due attentions should be given for rural and uneducated patients. Attention should be forwarded to for non-adherent patients to follow the instruction given by the health staff.&#x00A0Keywords: logistic regression, HAART, retrospective study, generalized linear mixed model, odds ratio