Background: HIV is a major health problem in the world and failure to implement prevention programs result in an increased number of infections among newborns.The goal of this study was to investigate the evolution and determinants of CD4 cell count among HIV-infected children who were under ART.
Methods: We follow-up a cohort of 201 children aged under fifteen years from Oct. 2013-to-Mar. 2017 at Adama Hospital in Ethiopia. To get insight into the data, exploratory data analysis was performed on the change in the longitudinal CD4 cell count.
Results: At the baseline the average number of CD4 cell counts was 468.5 cells/mm3 of blood with a standard deviation of 319.11 cells/mm3. Here we employed the random intercept and the random slope linear mixed-effects model to analyze the data. Among predictor variables, observation time, baseline age, WHO clinical stage, history of TB and functional status were determinant factors for the mean change in the square root of CD4 cell count.
Conclusions: The finding revealed that; the change in the square root of CD4 cell count increases with an increment of age at diagnosis. Regarding WHO clinical stages of patients, those who were in stage III and stage IV of the HIV/AIDs disease stages relatively had lower CD4 cell counts than stage I patients. This shows the change in the square root of CD4 cell counts of stage III and stage IV patients were 6.43 and 9.28 times lower than stage I patients respectively. Similarly, we noticed observation time, history of TB, and functional status had significantly associated with the mean change in the square root of CD4 cell count.