Prevalence of HIV in Patients Assisting the Regional Laboratory of Public Health of the State Zulia

Abstract

The infection caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) represents a global, national and regional public health problem. Among its objectives is to determine the prevalence of HIV in the population that goes to the Regional Laboratory of Public Health from January 2010 to July 2011. The descriptive-retrospective study methodology, which included a total of 9419 individuals, who were determined antigen and antibodies for HIV by the ELISA method and the serological confirmation of the reactive cases, by the Western Blot technique. As results, the results of the total of analyzed individuals 216 (2.29%) were positive for HIV. In relation to sex, the percentage of seropositivity was 56.482% (122/216) for women and 43.51% (94/216) for men. Of the total of positive women 18/122 were pregnant, representing 14.75%. The greatest number of cases was observed in the age group of 20-40 years with an accumulated percentage of 71.29%, followed by 41-64 years with 23.61%. It was concluded that there is a high incidence of HIV infection in females, the largest number of positive cases was in the productive ages of 20-40 years, which indicates that it remains a social and cultural problem to be seen involved the productive sector of the country.