SURVIVAL ANALYSIS OF MALE AND FEMALE HIV/AIDS PATIENTS IN NORTHERN REGION - A KAPLAN & MEIER APPROACH

Abstract

Acquired Immune deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a disease caused by a virus known as Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This virus attacks a person's immune system (white blood cells) and as such weakens the immune system and making the person vulnerable to opportunistic diseases e.g. tuberculosis, diarrhoea, to mention a few. HIV was first diagnosed more than twenty years ago and up to now there is no known cure for the disease. The rate at which HIV is spreading in sub-Sahara Africa is so high that the future generation is threatened with extinction. Thousands of people are dying daily of AIDS while tens of thousands are being infected. Different techniques have been used in campaign awareness programmes. These include; the media (Television, Radio, newspapers), books, schools, churches, etc. This project investigated the survival and hazards of both male and female HIV patients in the Northern Region. The main objective of the study was to compare the survival trends of both male and female HIV patients in the region who's CD4+ T-cell count was below 350copies/µl as well as determine variables contributing to survival using Kaplan-Meier functions and the Cox regression. A retrospective study of the records of ninety HIV patients taken from the 2006 cohort group from seven HIV Sentinel Surveillance centres was conducted up to the end of2009. There were 36 males and 54 females representing 40% and 60% of the number of the number of patients enrolled in the study. At the end of the study period, 33 females and 25 males were censored representing 61.11% and 69.44% respectively with 32 deaths. In this cohort study, survival times varied by age and the HIV stage of infection, but not sex and the location of the patient. The mean survival times for male and female patients were 43.4 and 43.3 months respectively with standard errors of 1.3843 and 1.1888 (at a level significance of 0.05). The p-values of age and CD4+ T-cell count of patients were found to be 0.0035 and 0.0025 respectively and thus contribute significantly to patient survival than sex and location since the hazard of old HIV/AIDS patients was significantly higher compared with younger patients. The potential working age group (25-49) years was found to be the most infected in the region.