HIV patients can suffer from a range of ailments. However, the prevalence of specific diseases may be depended on geographical or demographic factors. A team of researchers from the University of Fort Hare in South Africa, led by Olufunso O. Sogbanmu have studied the incidence of diabetes mellitus in HIV patients Buffalo City, East London. The team’s research has shown the need to screen older individuals diagnosed with HIV as crucial in offering a timely point of care and interventions to enable prompt diagnosis of diabetes mellitus in this cohort of patient and prevent possible comorbidities that may result from delayed diagnosis.
The study examined the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in newly diagnosed HIV-positive patients in Buffalo City Municipality, East London, South Africa. The majority of the participants were female (75%) and the prevalence of diabetes mellitus was 6% amongst newly diagnosed HIV positive patient using the definition based on the Society for Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes of South Africa (SEMDSA) 2017 guideline of HbA1c of above 6.5%. The multivariate analysis indicates only age (p=0.031) and race (0.019) significantly shows a correlation to increase the risk of development of diabetes mellitus in newly diagnosed HIV positive patients. The binary logistic regression analysis shows that age (above 46 years) (p=0.001; AOR (6.60); CI (2.08-20.9) was directly related to the development of diabetes mellitus.
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Another highlight of the study is the possibility that glycated haemoglobin may underestimate diabetes mellitus diagnosis amongst HIV positive population, hence, there may be a need to consider different screening tests to aid the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus amongst HIV positive patients. The research has been published in The Open Public Health Journal (Volume 12, 2019).
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Dr O. O. SOGANMU
PHD (Microbiology), MMed (Family Medicine), MBcHB
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