Community-acquired lower respiratory tract infections in an adult population with HIV infection in a Nigerian tertiary hospital

Abstract

Objective: Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) are 25-fold more common in people with HIV than in the general population. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of community-acquired LRTI and its associated factors in an adult population of people living with HIV (PLWH) in a Nigerian tertiary Hospital.Methodology: This was a prospective study done at the HIV clinic of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) Teaching Hospital Osogbo, Nigeria. It involved 130 randomly selected adult participants with a confirmed HIV-positive serology. The participants were followed up for a period of one year while looking out for symptoms and signs suggestive of LRTI.Results: The participants had a mean age of 41.9±10.02 years and a male to female ratio of 0.4:1. Seventeen (13.9%) of the participants developed LRTI during the study period and this was significantly associated with CD4 count and cigarette smoking history.Conclusion: LRTI is common among PLWH in Osogbo, and it occurs more commonly in those with low CD4 Tcell count and those with a history of cigarette smoking.
 Keywords: Lower respiratory tract infection, HIV, pneumonia.