Category Archives: Epidemiology and Determinants of Health
The current challenges affecting the quality of care of HIV/AIDS in the Middle East: Perspectives from local experts and future directions
OBJECTIVE: This report aimed to reflect the experts’ views regarding the challenges affecting the quality of care for people living with HIV in the Middle East. Besides, we integrated experts’...
Prevalence of visceral leishmaniasis among people with HIV: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Leishmaniasis is a parasitic infection expressing different clinical phenotypes. Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is considered an opportunistic infection among people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The objective of this review was...
Tuberculosis in household contacts of tuberculosis patients in sub-Saharan African countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Background: The Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex causes tuberculosis, a severe public health problem. Close contacts of someone who has active pulmonary tuberculosis were at a greater risk of contracting the disease. Despite the large...
Global prevalence and associated clinical markers of thrombocytopenia in people living with HIV: Evidence from meta-analysis
Thrombocytopenia is one of the complications in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients. To improve the health outcomes of patients living with HIV, it is important to understand the prevalence and...
Apolipoprotein L1 gene variants and kidney disease in patients with HIV: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Background: The risk of various types of kidney disease is significantly increased in the presence of APOL1 high-risk genotype (carriage of two risk alleles), particularly HIV-associated nephropathy (HIVAN). However, there are...
A systematic review and meta-analysis of the epidemiology of Leptospirosis in HIV uninfected and in people living with HIV from the Southern African Development Community
BACKGROUND: Leptospirosis is an occupational, neglected febrile disease of bacterial origin transmitted between humans and animals. In this manuscript we summarize available data on Leptospira infection in HIV uninfected and...
Cervical human papillomavirus genotypes in a high HIV setting: A scoping review of a decade of human papillomavirus epidemiological research in Botswana
Cervical cancer burden is still high in low- and middle-income countries, including Botswana. Persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Accurate knowledge of HPV diversity...
HIV sero-status disclosure and associated factors among HIV positive women in East Africa: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Implications for prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission
BACKGROUND: Women’s HIV-positive disclosure plays a pivotal role to achieve the goal of preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) among pregnant women in particular. Although several primary studies were conducted in the...
Barriers and facilitators to primary care engagement for people who inject drugs: A systematic review
INTRODUCTION: People who inject drugs (PWID) have a greater burden of multimorbid chronic diseases than the general population. However, little attention has been paid to the engagement in primary care...
The effects of intimate partner violence on women’s risk of HIV acquisition and engagement in the HIV treatment and care cascade: A pooled analysis of nationally representative surveys in sub-Saharan Africa
Background Achieving the 95-95-95 targets for HIV diagnosis, treatment, and viral load suppression to end the HIV epidemic hinges on eliminating structural inequalities, including intimate partner violence (IPV). Sub-Saharan Africa...