HIV status of individuals who underwent pre-employment medical screening at a federal tertiary health institution in southeast Nigeria.

Background: The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) targets the host immune system, particularly the CD4 T cells. The host resistance to opportunistic and non-opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis, fungal infections, severe bacterial infections, and several malignancies is weakened as a result of destruction of these CD4 cells by HIV. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of HIV among individuals who participated in pre-employment medical screening at David Umahi Federal University Teaching Hospital Uburu, Ebonyi State, Nigeria, with the aim of connecting those who are HIV-positive to voluntary counseling and treatment programs. Methodology: This was a retrospective analysis of the medical records of 537 eligible participants who underwent pre-employment medical screening exercise, and whose blood samples were tested for presence of HIV antibodies at the University Teaching Hospital, using the Determine HIV-1/2 (T1) and Unigold HIV-1/2 (T2), and the tie breaker Statpak HIV-1/2 (T3) tests. The serological results were interpreted according to the national HIV testing algorithm, with test result declared negative for HIV antibodies if T1 was negative or if only T1 was positive but T2 and T3 were both negative. Results: Of the total record of 756 pre-employment participants for the medical screening exercise, only 537 met the inclusion criteria for the study. The mean age of the 537 participants was 34.2±6.9 and age range of 18-67 years; 325 (61.0%) were females while 212 (39.0%) were males. The seroprevalence of HIV among the study participants was 2.4% (13/537), with 1.4% (3/212) in the males and 3.1% (10/325) in the females (x²=0.879, OR=0.45; 95% CI=0.12-1.60, p=0.3485). Only participants in the age range 26--35 and 36-45 years were HIV seropositive, with prevalence of 2.9% (9/310) and 2.4% (4/169) respectively but the HIV seroprevalence was not significantly associated with age and gender of the participants (p>0.05). Conclusion: The study findings provide useful information for the hospital administration of the HIV situation of its planned workforce, which will help with decisions on HIV positive participants to enrol in antiretroviral therapy program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]