Effects of Tuberculosis and HIV-2 Coinfection Elucidated

Like its more common cousin, HIV-2 infection has significant effects on tuberculosis risk, researchers in Europe and Africa report. "HIV-1 infection is associated with an increased incidence of and mortality from tuberculosis," explained Dr. Remonie Seng and colleagues working with the Projecto de Saude Bandim, Raoul Follereau Hospital, and the National Public Health Laboratory in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Bichat and Saint Antoine Hospitals in Paris, Malmo University Hospital in Malmo, Sweden, and the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control in Stockholm. "Few community studies have examined the effect of HIV-2 on tuberculosis," they wrote.

In this study, the authors found that HIV-2 infection was associated with a higher TB risk, although the effects of HIV-2 paled in comparison to those of its counterpart. Seng and coauthors evaluated the effects of TB and HIV-1 and -2 coinfection in more than 360 patients treated in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau's capital city. HIV-2 infection is more common in Bissau than anywhere else in the world, they noted.

Patients infected with HIV-2 had TB rates three times higher than HIV-negative subjects, study data showed. However, the presence of HIV-2 infection had no significant impact on short-term TB mortality rates.

By contrast, HIV-1 infection increased the TB risk by more than 18 times, while patients infected with both HIV strains suffered a nearly 14-fold elevation in tuberculosis risk ("Community Study of the Relative Impact of HIV-1 and HIV-2 On Intrathoracic Tuberculosis," AIDS, 2002; 16(7):1059-1066).

"The presence of HIV-2 infection increases the incidence of tuberculosis compared with that in non-HIV-infected individuals, but does not affect tuberculosis-related mortality in the short term," Seng and colleagues concluded.

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