A meta-analysis examined Giardia duodenalis infections and giardiasis in patients with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and found that patients with HIV/AIDS had higher prevalence of giardiasis compared to controls. Giardiasis was 1.2-times more frequent in patients not on antiretroviral therapy (ART) than in those on ART.
Additionally, “HIV/AIDS patients with diarrhea were 3.8 times more prone to G.duodenalis infection that non-diarrheal patients,” according to Farzad Mahdavi, MSc, the study’s lead author. His team’s report was published in Microbial Pathogenesis.
A total of 19,218 patients with HIV/AIDS from 130 studies were reviewed with a random-effects model and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the prevalence of giardiasis. The investigators estimated the pooled prevalence of G. Duodenalis based on several subgroupings of the study populations and the studies themselves, including publication years, World Health Organization regions, countries, continents, country incomes, and CD4+ T-cell levels. Associations between G. duodenalis frequency and some variables such as sample size, publication year, and human development index were also assessed.
Patients with HIV/AIDS had a pooled prevalence of giardiasis of 5% (95% CI 4.2–6). Further, the weighted odds ratio (OR) of G. Duodenalis infection was estimated to be 1.71-times higher in patients with HIV/AIDS than their controls within 48 case-control studies (95% CI 1.1–2.66, P = 0.016). HIV/AIDS patients with diarrhea were much more prone to infections than those without (P = 0.002).
Though the meta-analysis revealed some potential associations between patients with HIV/AIDS and G. Duodenalis infections and giardiasis, the authors stated that “the epidemiology of giardiasis in HIV/AIDS patients and its association with various risk factors is still open to question,” and called for more detailed research
Source: Microbial Pathogenesis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0882401021004769?via%3Dihub
