The Prevelance of HIV-1 and HIV-2 Among Patients: An 11 Year Experience at a Tertiary Care Centre

India has the second highest HIV population in the world with about 2.5–3.0 million cases. There are also reports of HIV-2 cases among general and patient population mostly from West and South India.ObjectivesTo observe the HIV-1 and HIV-2 prevalence among patients at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals from 1999–2009.Materials and MethodsA total of 69,510 patients were tested for the presence of HIV infection at our institution over the eleven year period. From 1999 till 2004, a Ortho HIV1/2, Clinical Diagnostics, Johnson & Johnson was used for screening. From 2005 till January 2009 all tests were done using the fourth generation Genscreen HIV1/2, Bio-Rad on a fully automated platform EVOLIS which detected the presence of HIV-1 P24 antigen and anti-HIV antibodies. From February 2009 onwards, the kits used were Genscreen ULTRA HIV Ag-Ab Assay from Bio-Rad.ResultsThere were 441 (0.634%) patients were found to be repeat reactive for HIV. 423 (96%) of these 441 reactive patients tested using the Western Blot were found positive for HIV-1 infection. Whereas 18 (4%) patients showed an indeterminate Western Blot result as the test showed the presence of only one envelope band, none of the patients were found reactive for HIV-2 infection.Interpretation & ConclusionsThe prevalence of HIV is 0.634% in our study is in accordance with the prevalence found in other reports in literature. No HIV-2 case was found for the last 11 years among our patient population.