Abstract:
Pathologic events in the early phase of SARSCoV2 infection involves perturbation of immune function with associated characteristic lymphopenia. People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) have lower CD4/CD8 cell ratios, chronic inflammatory state with immune exhaustion despite HAART, impaired germinal centre architecture all of which culminates in impaired neutralizing antibody production both quantitatively and qualitatively. This has been associated with severe form of COVID-19 among PLWHA. Chronic hepatitis B virus and SARS-CoV-2 co-infection increases the risk of hepatocytic liver injury with deranged liver function. Patterns of SARS-CoV-2 antibody profiles (isolated sRBD, N-Nt antigen, combined sRBD with N-Nt antigen) and seroprevalence among HIV/HBV/SARSCoV2 triple viral co-infected patients is not known. This study aims to explore the seroprevalence and antibody profiles of SARS-CoV2 among triple viral co-infected patients (HIV, HBV, SARSCoV2) in Nigeria.
We conducted a cross-sectional, multicentric, hospitalbased study among consenting asymptomatic ART clinic attendees in selected tertiary hospitals in southwestern Nigeria. Participants were enrolled during the first and second waves of Nigerian COVID-19 pandemic between February 2020 and March 2021 prior to introduction of COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria. One hundred and twenty-seven HIV/HBV co-infected patients sera were analysed for SARSCoV2 sRBD and N-Nt antibody response using ELISA technique
Gender distribution of participants involve 89 females (70.6%) and 38 males (29.3%), the peak age group for the combined sRBD and N-Nt antibody positivity among patients with HIV/HBV co-infection was 31-40 years, while the peak age group for the patients unable to mount antibody response (negative cohort) was 21-30years. A proportion of 27 out of 127 samples (21.2%) were positive for both sRBD and N-Nt antibody, while twenty-eight (22.0%) samples were positive for isolated sRBD only. Fifty-two patients (40.9%) were positive for isolated N-Nt antibody only.
Our findings from the study shows a high prevalence of isolated N-Nt antibody among cohorts of patients living with HIV/AIDS.