HIV positive children living in orphanages and home care: Assessment of nutritional deficiencies and opportunistic infections

OBJECTIVES: With the introduction of antiretroviral treatment (ART), opportunistic infections (OIs) reduced a lot and most HIV-associated OIs are preventable and treatable with safe cost-effective interventions. But however, in order to prevent and early diagnosis, we need to have baseline estimation of OIs among HIV positive children and other factors associated, especially nutritional deficiencies. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was carried out in pediatric outpatient department (OPD) of a large multicentric hospital among 106 children. Data were collected by means of pretested predesigned semi-structed questionnaire prepared on consultation with experts in the subjects and clinical assessment was done in day light to detect signs of nutritional disorders. Institutional ethical clearance was taken, and strict confidentiality was maintained. RESULTS: Majority (39.6%) of the children belong to 5–9 years. Children were equitably distributed between orphanage and family care giver. Bitot’s spots, cheilosis, and gum bleeding were found to be more than twice as common in subjects living with family, as compared to those living in orphanage while aphthous ulcer, knock knee, bow leg were found to be more than twice as common in female subjects as compared males. The prevalence of Pneumonia, Mumps, Herpes zoster, Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Oral candidiasis, and recurrent upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) was found to be about twice as common in subjects living with family, as compared to those living in orphanage while males had more Chicken pox, Herpes zoster, Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Oral candidiasis, and Recurrent URTI as compared to those in females. CONCLUSION: Vitamin deficiencies and opportunistic infections were higher than the prevalence reported by the various studies done on normal children. All efforts to be made to improve adequate nutrition to HIV positive children and ensure protection against opportunistic infections especially for children in home-based care.