Incidence and Spectrum of Opportunistic Infections Among HIV Infected Patients Attending Government Medical College, Kozhikode.

Background: People with advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV ) infections are vulnerable to opportunistic infections because of a weakened immune system. Early diagnosis of Opportunistic infections and prompt treatment definitely contributes to increased life expectancy among infected patients and delays the progression to AIDS.
Aims and Objectives: are to study the incidence, clinical spectrum and outcome of opportunistic infections and relation between opportunistic infections and CD4 count.
Material and Methods: The study was carried out in the Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART ) clinic and medical wards of Government Medical College, Kozhikode. The study period was from January 2012 to January 2013 till 100 opportunistic infections are identified in newly diagnosed retro positive patients. This was a clinical observational study. 424 newly diagnosed retro positive patients were screened to identify 100 patients having opportunistic infections and they were studied in detail.
Results: Out of the 100 patients, 71 were males and 29 were females.67% were in the age group of 30-49 years. The most common symptom of presentation was weight loss (77%) followed by fever (67%) and mucocutaneous lesions (60%). The commonest opportunistic infection detected was candidiasis (52%) followed by tuberculosis (50%).Majority of the patients had a CD4 count between 50-200/ microL. Out of the 100 patients 19 patients expired. Among them 10 patients had disseminated tuberculosis. Incidence of opportunistic infection was 23.59/100 person years.
Conclusions: This study demonstrates that Oral candidiasis is the commonest opportunistic infection in HIV patients and Tuberculosis is the second most common. The incidence of opportunistic infection is higher in the older age groups, males and patients with lowCD4 count.
(© Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2011.)