TITLE:
Impact of HIV/AIDS on mortality and nutritional recovery among hospitalized severely malnourished children before starting antiretroviral treatment
AUTHORS:
Léon G. Blaise Savadogo, Philippe Donnen, Fla Kouéta, Eléonore Kafando, Philippe Hennart, Michèle Dramaix
KEYWORDS:
Mortality; Severely Malnourished; HIV/AIDS; Children
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.3 No.4,
November
28,
2013
ABSTRACT: In
low income countries, severe acute malnutrition remains a major problem for
HIV-infected children and an important risk factor for mortality. This study
aims to analyze HIV impact on mortality rate and nutritional recovery among
severely malnourished HIV/AIDS uninfected and infected children. This was a
retrospective cohort study conducted from data of 521 hospitalized severely
malnourished children. We used Pearson’s Chi square test to compare proportions;
and Student’s independent t-test to compare means; general linear model to
analyze repeated measurements. We used mortality relative risk with confidence
interval (CI 95%), Kaplan-Meir survival curves and Cox proportional hazard
models to analyze the HIV impact on mortality rate. Case fatality rate differed
significantly from SAM HIV uninfected (10.7%) and HIV infected children
(39.7%), p cations have synergism on death occurrence in sever
acute malnutrition; when associated to HIV infection, case fatality rate
increases many times. Weight gain and anthropometrics index evolution were very
slow for SAM HIV infected children, and specific diet may be needed for more
nutritional recovery. Effective interventions, updated and adapting to local
country context, to improve survival of severely malnourished HIV/AIDS infected
children in HIV and SAM prevalent settings are urgently needed in the area of SAM’s community-based treatment approach.