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Introduction: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes impairment of defensive ability of the human body against infections. This causes infected host prone to get different types of diseases more frequently and easily due to low level of CD4 cell count which determines the immune status of a person. Cutaneous diseases are one of common and early manifestations of HIV/AIDs infected population with about 80% of them present with one or multiple skin diseases at any stage of HIV/AIDs. Frequency and severity of skin diseases depends on clinical stage of HIV/AIDs and other contributing factors like low level of CD4 cell count, ARV therapy intake, exposure and age of a patient. Most of the populations have less insight on the importance of early management of skin disorders because most of them usually underestimate the conditions assuming that skin diseases are benign and will subside. Also some of HIV infected patients delay or sometimes don’t start the use of ARVs hence leading to further complications of skin diseases. According to WHO, less than half of HIV infected population is still not in ARV therapy.
fgmkkmmkkmAim: To assess the types of HIV related skin diseases and their contributing factors (example. Low CD4 count, age, sex, HIV clinical stage) among patients attending care and treatment at Regional Dermatology Training Centre at KCMC hospital from January 2011 to December 2015.
Methodology: The study was hospital based retrospective cross sectional study design whereby secondary data were collected from the patients’ files attended at the clinic from January 2011 to December 2015 (five years). The data collected included, demographic data of a patient (example, Name, age, sex, occupational etc.), diagnosis of illness, CD4 cell count and if the patient used ARVs and clinical stage of HIV/AIDs. A data collection sheet used to collect all the data needed for the study and analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 20.
Study population: HIV infected patients with HIV related skin diseases at Regional Dermatology Training Centre.
Data collection: The data sheet was used to collect secondary data from medical files.
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The study may help to understand the types and number of skin diseases related to HIV among infected patients, the common age groups and sex with more skin diseases and to know how small number of CD4 cells can relate to skin diseases.
Results: In the study, the most common skin disease observed was Epidemic Kaposi Sarcoma 42(23.5%), followed by Pruritic papular eruptions 34(19%), eczema 16(8.9%), seborrhoic dermatitis 15(8.4%), herpes simplex 14(7.8%), warts 10(5.6%), herpes zoster 9(5%), contact dermatitis 8(4.5%), tinea pedis 7(3.9%), herpetic neuralgia 6(3.4%) and other skin conditions 19(10.6%). Majority of the patients were females where there were 98(54.7%) cases observed. More than half of the affected patients were found in age group between 31-45 years which was 53.1%. 98(57.3%) cases had CD4 cell count less than 200 cells/mm3 and only one case had CD4 cells count more than 800 at the time of diagnosis. |
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