Relationship between vitamin D and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral load among HIV-infected patients in Kazakhstan.

Introduction: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is associated with inflammation. An association between vitamin D deficiency and inflammation also exists. Our study attempts to examine whether there may be a relationship between vitamin D and HIV viral load (HIV RNA) by: 1) characterizing the distribution of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD), and 2) determining if 25-OHD is independently associated with HIV RNA.

An HIV type 1 subtype A outbreak among injecting drug users in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan experienced the start of the HIV-1 outbreak among intravenous drug users (IDUs) in 1997. To characterize genetically HIV-1 strains circulating in this country, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) DNA samples (1999-2002) derived from HIV-infected IDUs and their sexual partners in Pavlodar (n = 19), Shymkent (n = 6), and Qaraghandy (n = 18) regions were analyzed by the gag/env heteroduplex mobility assay (HMA). The 366-bp proviral env gene fragments encoding the gp120 C2-V3 region obtained from 16 individuals were sequenced.