Category Archives: Co-infections
Interventions to prevent HIV and Hepatitis C among people who inject drugs: Latest evidence of effectiveness from a systematic review (2011 to 2020)
BACKGROUND: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV remain prevalent among people who inject drugs (PWID) and transmission is usually associated with injecting risk behaviour (IRB). We update a 2011 review...
Evaluating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on accessing HIV services in South Africa: A systematic review
Progress has been made towards controlling the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) epidemic in South Africa. However, the emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted access to health care. This...
COVID-19 mortality in patients with immunodeficiency and its predictors: A systematic review
INTRODUCTION: Patients with immunodeficiency are usually more prone to worse outcomes of infectious diseases. However, there are some disagreements in the context of COVID-19, for example, in patients with human...
Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and outcome of cervical lesions and high-risk HPV in women living with HIV (WLHIV): A systematic review and meta-analysis
BACKGROUND: Collating evidence on the impact of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on the outcome of cervical lesions or human papillomavirus (HPV) infection among women living with HIV (WLHIV) is...
Prevalence of sexually transmitted infections and associated risk behaviors in prisoners: A systematic review
Background and aims: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are one of the major health concerns globally. Generally, prisoners are at higher risks for STIs due to risk factors including; drug-use, high-risk sexual...
Epstein-Barr virus detection in the central nervous system of HIV-infected patients
Simply detecting Epstein-Barr virus deoxyribonucleic acid (EBV-DNA) is insufficient to diagnose EBV-associated diseases. The current literature around EBV-DNA detection from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive non-lymphoma patients...
Hepatitis C virus coinfection in people with human immunodeficiency cirus in Iran: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfection is associated with higher mortality and morbidity in people with human immunodeficiency virus (PWH). Methods: We aimed to characterize the epidemiology and factors associated with HCV...
Current perspectives on the determinants of acceptability of pre-exposure prophylaxis and nonoccupational post-exposure Prophylaxis among people at risk for HIV: A scoping review
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and nonoccupational post-exposure prophylaxis (nPEP) were found to be effective HIV biomedical interventions. However, several barriers to acceptance of these interventions were discovered among populations at risk...
Worldwide prevalence of human papillomavirus among pregnant women: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the causative agent of cervical cancer and a suspected agent for ovarian and endometrial cancers in women. It is associated with adverse outcomes during pregnancy. To...
HPV self-sampling for cervical cancer screening among women living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries: What do we know and what can be done?
INTRODUCTION: Self-sampling has the potential to increase cervical cancer (CC) screening among women with HIV in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, our understanding of how HPV self-collection studies have...
Prevalence and distribution of selected cervical human papillomavirus types in HIV infected and HIV uninfected women in South Africa, 1989–2021: A narrative review
BACKGROUND: Human papillomavirus infection, a causative agent of cervical cancer, is of great concern, more so in populations with high HIV prevalence, such as South Africa. AIM: This review aimed...