Morbidity and mortality of black HIV-positive patients with end-stage kidney disease receiving chronic haemodialysis in South Africa.

Introduction: There are few published data from South Africa (SA) on the outcomes of black HIV-positive patients receiving chronic haemodialysis.
Methods: This retrospective study compared the incidences of vascular and infectious morbidity and mortality in black HIV-positive patients with those in a group of HIV-negative patients matched for ethnicity, age and gender. All the patients were receiving chronic haemodialysis in the medically insured healthcare sector of SA.
Results: The incidence of tuberculosis and hospital admission rates for vascular access-related infections were significantly higher in the HIV-positive group than the HIV-negative group. The HIV-positive group had significantly lower albumin (p<0.05) and haemoglobin levels (p<0.01), but this did not impact on mortality. Survival in both groups was excellent. In the HIV-positive group, viral suppression rates were suboptimal with <50% of patients on antiretroviral therapy completely virally suppressed.
Conclusion: This study has shown that black HIV-positive patients receiving chronic haemodialysis in a healthcare-funded environment in SA have excellent overall survival in spite of higher hospital admission rates and higher infectious morbidity compared with HIV-negative patients.