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Background: South Africa has the highest prevalence of HIV in the world and to date has recorded the highest number of cases of COVID-19 in Africa. There is uncertainty as to what the significance of this dual infection is, and whether people living with HIV (PLWH) have worse outcomes compared to HIV-negative patients with COVID-19. This study compared the outcomes of COVID-19 in a group of HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients admitted to a tertiary referral centre in Johannesburg, South Africa., Methods: Data was collected on all adult patients with known HIV status and COVID-19, confirmed by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), admitted to the medical wards and intensive care unit (ICU) between 6 March and 11 September 2020. The data included demographics, co-morbidities, laboratory results, severity of illness scores, complications and mortality, and comparisons were made between the HIV-positive and HIV negative groups., Results: Three-hundred and eighty-four patients, 108 HIV-positive and 276 HIV-negative, were included in the study. Median 4C score was significantly higher in the HIV-positive patients compared to the HIV-negative patients, but there was no significant difference in mortality between the HIV-positive and HIV-negative groups (15% vs 20%, p = 0.31). In addition, HIV-positive patients who died were younger than their HIV-negative counterparts, but this was not statistically significant (47.5 vs 57 years, p = 0.06)., Conclusion: Our findings suggest that HIV is not a risk factor for moderate or severe COVID-19 disease neither is it a risk factor for mortality. However, HIV-positive patients with COVID-19 requiring admission to hospital are more likely to be younger than their HIV-negative counterparts. These findings need to be confirmed in future, prospective, studies., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Transplant a liver from an HIV-positive mother to her HIV-negative child to save the child's life., Design: A unique case of living donor liver transplantation from an HIV-positive mother to her HIV-negative child in South Africa. Two aspects of this case are ground-breaking. First, it involves living donation by someone who is HIV-positive and second it involves controlled transplant of an organ from an HIV-positive donor into an HIV-negative recipient, with the potential to prevent infection in the recipient., Methods: Standard surgical procedure for living donor liver transplantation at our centre was followed. HIV-prophylaxis was administered preoperatively. Extensive, ultrasensitive HIV testing, over and above standard diagnostic assays, was undertaken to investigate recipient serostatus and is ongoing., Results: Both mother and child are well, over 1 year posttransplantation. HIV seroconversion in our recipient was detected with serological testing at day 43 posttransplant. However, a decline in HIV antibody titres approaching undetectable levels is now being observed. No plasma, or cell-associated HIV-1 DNA has been detected in the recipient at any time-point since transplant., Conclusion: This case potentially opens up a new living liver donor pool which might have clinical relevance in countries where there is a high burden of HIV and a limited number of deceased donor organs or limited access to transplantation. However, our recipient's HIV status is equivocal at present and additional investigation regarding seroconversion events in this unique profile is ongoing.

Increasing numbers of HIV/AIDS-infected individuals have presented to medical casualty at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH) after attempting suicide by overdosing on their antiretroviral therapy. Since 2009, medical gastro-enterology at CMJAH has been the primary specialty unit for cases of accidental or intentional overdose. Psychiatry and other medical sub-specialties are consulted as needed. Our unit sees approximately 1 case a month of accidental/intentional overdose with antiretrovirals. Between January and September 2010, 6% of all overdoses seen at CMJAH were of antiretroviral origin. Supportive care is provided and patients undergo psychiatric evaluation. The information available on overdoses with antiretrovirals is from studies in developed countries, where intravenous drug users and men who have sex with men make up the bulk of the HIV-positive population. This differs significantly from South Africa, which now has the largest antiretroviral programme in the world. With little evidence related to this type of overdose, are we approaching the management, monitoring and follow-up of these patients correctly?

Introduction: What is palliative care and what are its essential elements? Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention, treatment and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial or spiritual. Under normal circumstances, the clinician's mandate is the restoration of a patient's health and well-being which begins with obtaining a medical history, the examination of the patient, the formulation of a probable diagnosis, investigation, the start of remedial therapy, the monitoring of the response, a review of laboratory or radiographic data and the confirmation of the diagnosis. This committee recommends the use of the SPICT tool where ART is unlikely to improve outcome, for example, end-stage cancer and irreversible end-organ failure, or where current or future ART is judged by the medical and palliative care team to be futile. Chronic pain, that is, pain lasting >= 3 months, is common in the HIV-infected population and is often the reason for a palliative care consultation.[31] Pain in HIV-infected South Africans is likely to accompany an identifiable clinical cause and the most valuable contribution the HIV and palliative care physician can make to pain management is to identify the cause and treat it. [Extracted from the article]