luminous flux

We conducted a retrospective cohort study of PHIV adolescents on ART.

To our knowledge, this is the first published study of outcomes of PHIV children in SA after >10 years in HIV care, albeit from a single centre.

[17,18] One in four children in our cohort had chronic lung disease, a well-known complication among PHIV adolescents, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa [19,20] Despite HAZ improvements in childhood, in this study and others in LMICs [21,22] PHIV adolescents continue to be at least one standard deviation below normal height, with potential impact on final adult height.

The mean household incomewas 1.83 minimumsalaries in PHIV group and 2.20 in BHIV group.

Pregnant PHIV had a tendency to have lower initial CD4 cell count and viral load at admission, although these differences did not reach significance (Table 1).

There was a significant improvement in CD4 cell counts and viral load between admission to ANC and delivery in both groups: in PHIV group, CD4 cell count increased 125 on average (p < 0.01), and viral load decreased 4.2 log (p < 0.01) on average; in the BHIV group, the mean increment of CD4 cell count was 98 (p < 0.01), and the mean viral load decrement was 4.5 log (p < 0.01).