Prevalence of HIV-2 in ICTC Attendees of a Tertiary Care Hospital, Vijayawada

Infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus 2 occurs mainly in West Africa, but an increasing number of cases have been recognized in Europe, India and the United States. India is one of the countries where a dual epidemic of HIV 1 & 2 is occurring. A retrospective hospital based 4-year study was undertaken to know the prevalence of HIV-2 and its Co-infection with HIV-1 in ICTC, Department of Microbiology, SMC, Vijayawada from Jan. 2011 to Dec. 2014. Testing and reporting was done according to NACO guidelines. A total number of 40,575 samples were tested during the study period and theprevalence of HIV-2 was noted to be 0.7% including both monotypic and dual infection with HIV-1. Monotypic infections with HIV-2 were 66.55% and dual infections were 33.45% in this study. Affected Males were 51.3% and Females were 48.7% and the incidence was almost equal in both the genders in this study. Most Common age group was 21-50 years (84.64%). Concordant couples were 58% and discordant couples were 42%. Identification of Partner infectivity and effective counselling of discordant ant couples is very important in preventing the spread of infection in the community.