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Anaemia and Its Correlates in Haart Naïve Patients in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Introduction: Anemia is one of the complications of HIV infection, a multifactorial marker of bone marrow dysfunction, and an indicator of poor prognosis. Methods: A retrospective assessment of electronic data and case notes of HAART naïve patients in our hospital between January 2016 and December 2018 was done. Data on age, sex, packed cell volume (PCV) and CD4 at diagnosis was collected. Continuous variables were compared with the students’ t-test while categorical parameters were compared with the chi-square. Spearman’s correlation was used to assess the association between anaemia and the CD 4 count. Risk factors for the outcome variable were determined with logistic regression and a p-value of ≤0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The records of three hundred and twenty-one (321) new registrants in the Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Clinic in Rivers State University Teaching Hospital (RSUTH) were evaluated. Their mean age was 40.43 ±10.51 years (range 19 – 76 years). Anemia was prevalent in 280(87.2%) patients. The CD4 count was normal in 102 (32.6%) patients. Female gender (p=0.001) and WHO clinical stage (p<0.001) were found to be the strongest predictors of anemia in this study. Conclusion: The findings from this study shows that a significant proportion of people infected with HIV present with severe immunosuppression and low hemoglobin. There is a need to strengthen the pathways for early diagnosis, prompt treatment by trained physicians and supportive care by hematologists to reduce the severity and impact of anemia in this group of patients.