COVID‐19 in a patient with HIV infection

COVID-19 in a patient with HIV infectionTo the Editor, SARS-CoV-2, the etiological agent responsible for the novel coronavirus disease 2019 has led to curiosities that have driven the path of drug discovery and research for optimal clinical management, especially in patients with other underlying comorbidities. 1 Patients of older age (>60 years) and with other comorbidities such as hypertension, respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease are found to present with more severe infection and have adverse outcomes.2 However, little is known about COVID-19 in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, despite the overwhelming majority of patients within this group matching the riskfactors for poor prognosis when infected with SARS-CoV-2.Only a handful of cases of HIV/SARS-CoV-2 coinfection have been reported, none originating in the United States, which has the highest number of reported COVID-19 cases in the world.3-7 Current therapies for COVID-19 involve a range of antiretroviral therapies, some of which are commonly used as a standard treatment in HIV patients and others that were also proven as an effective course of treatment during the SARS-CoV epidemic.8 Though there is not enough currently available evidence to argue that PLWH that are receiving standard antiretroviral treatment may be at a lower risk of contracting COVID-19, previous case reports indicate favorable prognosis for these coinfected patients that were already receiving ART.Here, we report a recovered case of SARS-CoV-2 infection in an HIV-positive 58-year-old male, who has been followed by our infectious disease clinic for antiretroviral therapy.