Epidemiological and clinical features of HIV-2 infection in Dakar

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this article was to describe the epidemiological and clinical aspects of HIV-2 infection in Dakar. DESIGN AND METHODS: This retrospective study was made on 217 HIV-2 infected patients hospitalized between 1986 and 2003; the epidemiological, clinical, and paraclinical data was collected and analyzed using the Epi-Info software version 6.04. RESULTS: The mean age was 40 years+/-9.6 and the male to female sex ratio was 1.33. The mode of transmission was primarily heterosexual. Some risk factors (travel abroad, heterosexual multi-partners, and unprotected sexual intercourse) were more frequently observed in men while others (blood transfusion, HIV positive partners) were noted among HIV-2 infected women. The most frequent symptoms were weight loss (88%), diarrhea (77%), fever (72.4%), asthenia (70.5%), chronic cough, and dermatosis (50.7%). The main opportunistic infections were oral candidiasis (61.8%), tuberculosis (26.3%), intestinal parasitosis (20.3%). The lethality rate was 33.2% and it was correlated with a low CD4 rate. Meningoencephalitis and bacterial infections were associated with a high lethality rate. CONCLUSIONS: The epidemiological and clinical aspects of HIV-2 infection were the same as in HIV-1 infected patients. However the lethality rate remained high among patients hospitalized with a low CD4 cell count. Early HIV testing and improving the diagnostic approach for opportunistic infections remains a high priority.