Effectiveness of Antiretroviral Therapy Among Hiv Infected Patients: A Ten –Year Retrospective Study in University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital

Studies indicate that Antiretroviral (ART) medications has been effective in the management of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) among infected patients. This is evident as they have proven to reduce the HIV viral load, increase CD4 count and prevent resistance to ARV medications with less opportunistic infections and diseases thereby ensuring an increase in survival rate among HIV infected patients. Since HIV infection is chronic and exposure to ART medication is lifelong, there is need to evaluate it’s effectiveness to ensure the successful management of the infection. This study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of Antiretroviral therapy over the past ten(10) years,through assessment of patients’ response to therapy using monitoring parameters such as CD4 count and Viral load. Also to identify the combination of ART regimen in relation to treatment guidelines and also identify the rate of switching therapy over the period. Retrospective cohort study design was used and data were collected for 383 HIV infected patients from the Institute of Human Virology of Nigeria (IHVN) database of the University of Port Harcourt HIV clinic after calculating the sample size. The data collected for each patient include antiretroviral regimen that has been used so far, CD4 count and Viral load from 2013 till 2022. The data was then analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2016 and the outputs were presented using figures, bar charts and line chart. From the data collected, ART regimens has been effective in the management of HIV among infected patients as it has proven to increase CD4 count while reducing the viral load among patients. Also the approved first line ART regimen was AZT-3TC-NVP from 2012 till 2022 however; this was switched to TDF-3TC (FTC)-DTG due to the former regimen inability to suppress the viral load probably due to the resistance of the virus to the medication. In the past Ten years, ART regimens have only been switched once (in 2018) to ensure adherence to therapy and effectiveness in the infection management. From the retrospective study conducted, it was observed that ART has greatly improved the survival rate of HIV infected patients as an increase in CD4 count indicates a probability of the body to be able to resist and fight potential infections and a suppression in viral load indicates a decrease in transmission rate.