AEGiS-14IAC: Evaluating outcomes of HAART treatment among Ethiopian immigrants compared to non-Ethiopians in Israel.

14th International AIDS Conference

Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

Evaluating outcomes of HAART treatment among Ethiopian immigrants compared to non-Ethiopians in Israel.

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no.. C10690)

Nelson NP, Bentwich Z, Alkan M, Bolotin A, Sugarman K, Galai N
Ben Gurion University, Soroka Medical Center, Beer Sheva, Israel

BACKGROUND: It has been shown that Ethiopian immigrants in Europe and Israel exhibit a different immune profile compared to the non-immigrant population. Chronic immune activation in Ethiopian immigrants has been suggested to contribute to these findings. Controversy exists regarding how immune activation affects HIV/AIDS disease progression. In this study we evaluated outcome of HAART treatment in an Ethiopian immigrant population compared with non-Ethiopians in Israel.

METHODS: An open cohort consisting of 265 Adult Ethiopian immigrants (HIV-1 subtype C) and 98 non-Ethiopian Israelis (HIV-1 subtype B) was assessed. All patients were treated with HAART at one AIDS center. The endpoint was death, and follow-up continued until December 2001. Survival methods, including Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox models, were applied.

RESULTS: At HAART initiation, the groups had non-significant differences for age and CD4 count. Ethiopians had a slightly lower mean age (35.5 vs. 36.6, ns). Ethiopians also had slightly lower mean CD4 cells/ul (219 vs. 252, p=0.09). Overall survival was similar in the two groups, with higher CD4 (relative hazards [RH]= 0.99, p=0.024) and lower viral load (RH= 2.25, p=0.013) associated with better survival.

CONCLUSIONS: There were no differences in disease progression rates between the Ethiopian immigrants and non-Ethiopians in Israel. It appears that differences in immune profiles do not have an influence on survival, when considering HAART. This result gives support to previous studies showing no difference in disease progression rates among groups with different HIV subtype and immune profile. This study assumes that there was equal compliance among the Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian population, an issue which should be further explored.

Keywords: AEGIS, Israel, Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active, Emigration and Immigration, CD4 Lymphocyte Count, HIV Infections, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV-1, HIV Seropositivity, Disease Progression, CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes, Antigens, CD4, Africa, Ethiopia, Europe, Adult, Human, therapy, immunology, drug therapy

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C10690