TY - JOUR AU - Babatope, I. O. AU - Esumeh, F. I. AU - Orhue, P. I. AU - IYEVHOBU, KENNETH PY - 2022/05/12 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Viral Load Pattern and Virological Suppression Rate of a Cohort of Hiv-1 Patients in a Rural Community in Nigeria JF - European Journal of Applied Sciences JA - EJAS VL - 10 IS - 3 SE - Articles DO - 10.14738/aivp.103.12177 UR - https://journals.scholarpublishing.org/index.php/AIVP/article/view/12177 SP - 8-19 AB - <p>HIV is a pandemic infection and remains a public health concern for many decades. This infection is associated with life threatening depletion of immune response, opportunistic infections and malignancies.&nbsp; The aim of this study is to determine the viral load pattern and virological suppression rate of HIV-1 subjects in Irrua, Edo Central Senatorial District of Edo state, Nigeria. A total of three hundred and forty four (344) HIV-1 subjects aged between 17-60 years and of both sexes were recruited into the study. The HIV-1 subjects were divided into asymptomatic and symptomatic subjects. One hundred and fifty (150) apparently healthy HIV-1 negative subjects served as control. The viral load titre was determined using the COBAS Ampliprep/COBAS “Taqman” HIV-RNA test (PCR technology). Results obtained revealed that the mean viral loads of the asymptomatic and symptomatic HIV-1 subjects were 20,333.00±13,474.65 and 535,000.02±485,423.40 against control (20.00±0.00). Both asymptomatic and symptomatic groups revealed a statistical significant difference (P&lt;0.05). Furthermore, there was no significant difference according to gender while comparison between viral load and age showed a statistically significant difference (P&lt;0.05).The overall virological suppression rate of HIV-1 subjects on-ART was 81.6%. Sex-wise distribution revealed that more females (48.87%) were virally suppressed compared to their male counterparts (32.73%). According to age distribution, subjects belonging to the age bracket of 37-46 years recorded the highest frequency distribution of 37.96% while the least (5.70%) belonged to the age group of 17-26 years. In summary, there was a significant and progressive increase in the viral load titre of asymptomatic and symptomatic HIV-1subjects in relation to control. Also, the proportion of HIV-1 subjects who had viral load &lt;1,000 RNA copies/ml was relatively high at 81.6% but falls short of UNAIDS’ 90% target for on-treatment viral suppression. &nbsp;It re-emphasizes the need to test subjects and start treatment with antiretroviral drugs early.</p> ER -