Clinical Findings of Pediatric HIV Infection in a Tertiary Center in Turkey

Epidemiology and clinical spectrum of pediatric patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection: A 15 years' experience

Objective

To view the different patterns of presentation of HIV in pediatric population along with mode of transmission and associated co infections and co morbidities.

Methods

It was a retrospective study conducted at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad, in which we evaluated the records of pediatric patients diagnosed with HIV from 2005 to 2020. All the data like age, gender, area, presenting complaints, examination findings at the time of diagnosis, mode of transmission, co infection and co morbidities were recorded. Descriptive analysis was done to calculate frequencies and means of the variables. SPSS 20 was used for data analysis.

Results

Ninety four participants were evaluated with male to female ratio as 1.8:1 and mean age of 5.2 years. Majority of patients (44%) were below 4 years. Fever (55%) was the most reported symptom followed by cough (39%), diarrhoea (29%), pallor (27%), shortness of breath (26%), weight loss (23%) and failure to thrive (22%). Co infection with TB was present in (16%). Eight (9%) patients were thalassaemic. Mother to child transmission (60%) was the commonest mode of transmission followed by blood transfusion (23%) and parenteral transmission (6%).

Conclusion

In children HIV is more prevalent in males especially under 4 years with fever, cough, diarrhea and pallor being the common symptoms at presentation. Tuberculosis is the commonest co infection as we are endemic for TB and mother to child transmission is the commonest mode of transmission as there was no outbreak in our area.

Note: Biochemical samples centrifuged in-flight on drones

The ability to conduct en-route centrifugation of samples improves quality and timeliness in the pre-analytical phase. This is demonstrated here on a quadcopter whereby the propellers were adapted to house and apply centrifugal forces to sample-containing capillary tubes instead of incorporating a centrifuge. Tests revealed the ability of the method to separate non-homogenized milk into a cream portion and a skim milk portion, and human whole blood into plasma, buffy coat, and red blood cell components.