HBV infection in untreated HIV-infected adults in Maputo, Mozambique

---

Francisco Antunes

University of Lisbon, Portugal

: J Virol Antivir Res

Abstract

---

HIV/HBV co-infected patients are at high risk of developing chronic HBV infection, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. In Mozambique, where HIV prevalence is one of the highest in the world, HIV-infected patients are scarcely characterized in terms of HBV coinfection. To characterize ART-naïve HIV-infected adults, with and without HBV coinfection, a cross-sectional study was conducted between May and November 2012 in two health centres from Maputo, Mozambique. Subjects were consecutively enrolled in the study and, then, tested for HBsAg. Moreover, CD4+ T cells count, HBV DNA in plasma, HBV genotyping were assessed in HIV/HBV co-infected patients. In total, 518 patients were enrolled in the study. The median age was 33 years old and 66.8% were women. The median CD4+ T cells count was 361 cells/mm3 and 47 (9.1%) were co-infected with HBV. Out of 46 co-infected patients, 24 (55.2%) had HBV-DNA ≥ 20 – 20.000 IU/mL and 12 (26.1%) had HBV-DNA ≥ 20.000 IU/mL. APRI > 2.0 was reported in 4.3% of co-infected and 1.7% of monoinfected patients (p = 0.228), while FIB-4 > 3.25 reported in 4.4% of co-infected and 1.3% of mono-infected patients (p = 0.112). Genotype A was the most frequent, identified in 25/27 (92.6%) patients, whereas genotype E was present in 2/27 (7.4%) patients. This study showed that HBV coinfection was prevalent among ART-naïve HIV-infected adults in Mozambique. Overall, these data highlight the importance of screening HBV co-infection as an integrated measure of HIV routine care to improve health conditions and treatment of HIV/HBV co-infected patients.

Biography

---

Francisco Jose Nunes Antunes received MD and PhD certificates from University of Lisbon. He completed his training in Infectious Diseases at the Hospital de Santa Maria, and in Tropical Medicine at the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, in Lisbon. He was Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Hospital de Santa Maria, and Full Professor of Infectious Diseases at the School of Medicine of Lisbon, and Full Professor of Parasitology at the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical. Currently he is member of the Instituto de Saude Ambiental at the School of Medicine at the Universidade de Lisboa, and collaborate with the School of Medicine of the University Eduardo Mondlane (Maputo- Mocambique) ant the Hospital Dr. Ayres de Menezes (Ministry of Health -S. Tome e Principe) in the fields of HIV and Hepatitis (research and training). He was President of the European Conference of HIV (EACS 1999), European Congress on Tropical Medicine and Tropical Health (2002), and International Congress of Infectious Diseases 2006), and member of several International and European Conferences on HIV, Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine. His scientific and research interests include Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Tropical Medicine. He is author and co-author of more than 150 articles on peer reviewed biomedical journals.