Immunologic and Virological Profile of Older Adult Patients Infected by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus starting Treatment in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

Background: Although the National HIV Infection Control Program has adopted the “Test and Treat” option, virological, immunological and clinical parameters are still important for the decision of the appropriate treatment and proper care. Objective: The objective of this work was to evaluate the immunological and virological profile of HIV-infected patients over 50 years of age starting antiretroviral treatment in Kinshasa. Methods: Twenty-seven subjects over the age of 50 years diagnosed with HIV Type 1 by serology in 3 treatment centers in Kinshasa during the period from 08 November 2013 to 14 February 2014 participated voluntarily in this work. After signing informed consent, blood samples were collected in 5 ml tubes with EDTA. The CD4 count and Viral Load (VL) were performed in each patient at the inclusion (D0) in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Kinshasa. The clinical and paraclinical parameters were recorded on the patient files previously designed for the work. Results: Of the 27 patients, 14 (51.85%) were women. The median age of the population was 58 years in the range of 50 to 70 years. Four patients (14.8%) were in clinical stage 2 while 20 (74.1%) in stage 3 and 3 (11.1%) in stage 4 according to the classification recommendations of the World Health Organization. The median CD4 count is 227.78 cells/ml; the minimum and maximum values were 90 and 350 cells/ml respectively. The median value of the VL of the patients included was 5.49 log10 copies of RNA/ml; the minimum and maximum values were respectively 4.25 and 7.15 log10 copies of RNA/ml. Conclusion: The immunological and virological profile of HIV positive patients aged over 50 year in Kinshasa is not significantly different from the profiles of the general heterogeneous populations.