HLA-A68 and HLA-B15 alleles correlate with poor immune response among AIDS patients on combined antiretroviral therapy

Around 15–30% of AIDS patients fail to recover their CD4+ T cell levels following combined antiretroviral therapy despite successful inhibition of HIV-1 replication. The exact reasons for this immune recovery failure are not completely understood. HLA alleles are among the candidate that may explain this failure. A total of 65 adult AIDS patients, with viral load of <50 copies per ml were investigated. Viral load and CD4 T cells counts were performed following standard techniques. HLA genotyping was performed using PCR-SSP technique. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 19) was used for data processing and analysis. A significantly higher proportion of poor immune responders were carrying HLA-A68 (4.8% compared to 25.0%, P = 0.025) and HLA-B15 (2.4% compared to 20.8%, P = 0.023). The etiological fraction (Efe%) among carriers of HLA-A68 was 57.89% (95% CI = 26.79, 75.79) and was 61.35% (95% CI = 35.33, 76.91) among carriers of HLA-B15.