Nutrient Intake, Nutrient Status and Pattern of Infections in HIV Sero-Positive Patients in Chulaimbo Sub-District Hospital, Kenya

Abstract

HIV worsens the nutritional status by increasing the body’s requirement for food and also leads to opportunistic infections, which in turn, increase body nutrition requirements. The objective was to assess nutrient intake, nutrient status and nutritional status and establish the infection pattern of HIV seropositive patients attending a Comprehensive Care Clinic. A prospective cohort design was adopted where 497 HIV and AIDS patients enrolled at the hospital were followed for six months. This comprised of 105 males and 392 females attending the AMPATH Comprehensive Care Clinic in Chulaimbo Sub-district hospital from February 2010 to July 2010. Analysis of nutrient intake using 24-hour recall, food frequency checklist, nutrient status using biochemical assessment indicators (haemoglobin, creatinine, serum glutamate pyruvate (SGPT) and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and pattern of infections using a morbidity tool. There was inadequate nutrient intake reported in most of the patients although a slightly more than half (55.3%) had three meals per day. Malnutrition was observed in 20.3% of 497 HIV sero-positive patients were who had a mean BMI < 18.5kg/m2. The common co-infections/opportunistic infections were pneumonia (16.1%), tuberculosis (14.9%), dermatitis (8.7%), malaria (5.6%) and oral candidiasis (0.8%). Therefore, nutrition assessment of HIV and AIDS patients is important at all stages of the disease in order to identify those with signs of malnutrition. This will assist in preventing or detecting malnutrition from the early stages of HIV infection among HIV and AIDS patients.