DETERMINANTS OF CD4 COUNT CHANGE IN PERSONS ON ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY FOR HIV/AIDS IN THE KASSENA-NANKANA EAST DISTRICT OF UPPER FAST REGION OF GHANA

Abstract

HIV/AIDS was first recognized in the early 1980's and since then has affected humankind in different ways across all the continents. It has been a wake-up call to scientists, health experts, NGOs, individuals, and other stakeholders to handle such a menace since the virus depletes the CD4 T-lymphocytes which is a major cell of maintaining the body immune system against various infectious diseases. A secondary data of 142 persons living with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral therapy was obtained from War Memorial Hospital of Navrongo in the Kassena-Nankana East District of Upper East Region of Ghana. The data excludes those who did not have their CD4 count taken at least once after treatment initiation. A generalized linear model (PROC GENMOD) was used in analyzing the data with SAS and SPSS software. The mean change in CD4 count of the 142 persons on treatment was 244.1 cells per micro litre with an average time of 13.6 months with females having the highest mean change in CD4 count of 259.8 cells per micro litre. The minimum and maximum CD4 count of change was 8 and 651 cells per micro litre within the time interval of 4 to 49 months. Poisson distribution was chosen since it best fitted the data among other distributions to model person's change in CD4 count on treatment. Number of months on treatment, weight, height, etc, were found to significantly determine the amount of change in CD4 count (P-values <0.05).