Long-term immunological responses to treatment among HIV-2 patients in Côte d'Ivoire.

Background: Studies indicate that responses to HIV-2 treatment regimens are worse than responses to HIV-1 regimens during the first 12 months of treatment, but longer-term treatment responses are poorly described. We utilized data from Côte d'Ivoire's RETRO-CI laboratory to examine long-term responses to HIV-2 treatment.

Methods: Adult (≥15 years) patients with baseline CD4 counts < 500 cells/μl that initiated treatment at one of two HIV treatment centers in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire between 1998 and 2004 were included in this retrospective cohort study.

Use of pre-ART laboratory screening to identify renal, hepatic and haematological abnormalities in Côte d'Ivoire.

Background: High demand for HIV-services and extensive clinical guidelines force health systems in low-resource settings to dedicate resources to service delivery at the expense of other priorities. Simplifying services may reduce the burden on health systems and pre-antiretroviral therapy (ART) laboratory screening is among the services under consideration for simplification.

Methods: We assessed the frequencies of conditions linked to ART toxicities among 34,994 adult, ART-naïve patients with specimens referred to the RETRO-CI laboratory in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire between 1998 and 2017.

Erratum.

[This corrects the article on p. 166 in vol. 4, PMID: 25215193.

Assessment of the genotype MTBDRplus assay for rifampin and isoniazid resistance detection on sputum samples in Cote d'Ivoire.

We conducted an evaluation study on the GenoType MTBDRplus assay's ability to detect mutations conferring resistance to rifampin and isoniazid directly from sputum taken from 120 smear positive pulmonary patients from tuberculosis (TB) centers in Cote d'Ivoire. The sputum was decontaminated by N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NALC) and comparatively analyzed with the MTBDRplus assay version 2.0 and the mycobacterial growth indicator tube (MGIT) 960 automated drug susceptibility testing (MGIT-DST).

Quantification of HIV-1 p24 by a highly improved ELISA: an alternative to HIV-1 RNA based treatment monitoring in patients from Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.

Background: Quantification of HIV-1 RNA remains difficult to implement in Africa. Simple and inexpensive tests for antiretroviral treatment (ART) monitoring are needed.

Objective: To evaluate an HIV-1 p24 ELISA, which combines efficient virus disruption, heat-denaturation and signal amplification, in a West African setting.