Association between highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and hypertension in persons living with HIV/AIDS at the Bamenda regional hospital, Cameroon

Introduction: the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in the treatment of HIV infection has provided different good results: like long-term viral suppression, the decrease of opportunistic infections, and repair of the immune system. Methods: we carried out a hospital-based cross-sectional analytic study involving 315 participants 228 were on HAART (group 1) and 87 were HAART-naive (group 2) at the HIV treatment centre of the Bamenda regional hospital with our study population being all people living with HIV (PLWHIV) in the North West region of Cameroon. The sampling was performed from the 15th of March to the 30th of June 2017. The questionnaire was administered face to face with participants and their vital signs taken. Blood pressure was measured using an automated electronic blood pressure monitor and hypertension (HTN) was considered as systolic blood pressure (BP) >= 140 mmHg and/or diastolic BP >= 90mmHg. Results: the prevalence of hypertension in the HAART group was 36.44% (n=82, CI: 30.15%-43.10%) compared to that of the HAART-naive group which was 13.33% (n=12, CI: 7.08%-22.13%, P=0.01). HAART was associated with HTN after controlling for gender, family history of hypertension, body mass index (BMI), smoking and alcohol consumption. The odds ratio of the HAART-treated versus the HAART-naive was 3.86 (95% CI: 1.98-7.50). We also found an association between TDF/3TC/EFV (OR=2.83), AZT/3TC/NVP (OR=2.82), AZT/3TC+EFV (OR=3.48) and TDF/3TC+NVP (OR=2.36) and HTN whereas those on AZT+3TC+ATV/r (OR=0.84) and TDF+3TC+ATV/r (OR=0.45) were not associated to hypertension. Conclusion: our result suggests that blood pressure should be periodically measured and treated when necessary in PLWHIV on HAART.