Prevalence of persistent and latent viruses in untreated patients infected with HIV‐1 from Ghana,West Africa

Only limited epidemiological data, pertaining to the prevalence of common persistent viruses has been reported in Ghana. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of persistent viruses in individuals with untreated HIV‐1 infection and uninfected blood donors. Paired plasma and cellular samples from HIV‐negative blood donors, asymptomatic HIV and symptomatic/AIDS cohorts were screened by multiplex PCR then qPCR for parvovirus B19 (B19V), hepatitis B virus (HBV), GB virus‐C (GBV‐C), cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein–Barr virus (EBV), human herpesvirus‐8 (HHV‐8) and varicella‐zoster virus (VZV). IgG antibodies specific to each target virus were tested to determine exposure rates. No evidence of viraemia was found for B19V and VZV in any group. Prevalence of GBV‐C plasma viraemia was significantly higher in asymptomatic and symptomatic HIV infection (16.7%) and (16.2%) than in blood donors (4%) P < 0.005. Occult HBV infection was significantly more frequent in symptomatic HIV infection (10.9%) compared to asymptomatic HIV (3.6%) and blood donors (1.6%) P < 0.005. Although there was a high background of EBV viraemia in cellular fractions of blood donors (8.3%), it was significantly higher in asymptomatic (44.6%) and symptomatic HIV (14.6%) P < 0.0001. For CMV, the significantly increased prevalence of viraemia was only observed in the plasma fraction of the symptomatic HIV‐1/AIDS patients (7.6%) compared to asymptomatic individuals (1.8%) and blood donors (0.8%) P ≤ 0.001. The background seroprevalence in blood donors was high for B19V (≥64%), HBV (≥70%), CMV and EBV (≥90%) and was significantly increased in HIV infections for HBV, CMV, VZV (symptomatic HIV), and HHV‐8 (asymptomatic and symptomatic HIV). J. Med. Virol. 81:1860–1868, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.