Tropical Health Matters

While the International AIDS Society is holding its 2015 meeting in Vancouver, it is important to remember that individual infectious diseases do not exist in isolation, but in combination make life worse for infected people. The co-infective culprit with HIV/AIDS that usually received the most attention is Tuberculosis, but malaria is not without its dangers. Herein we highlight a few recent studies and publications on the interactions between HIV and malaria.

Just because today malaria is primarily a tropical disease, it does not mean that people living with AIDS (PLHIV) in other parts of the world are not at risk. Schrumpf and colleagues point out that people living with HIV frequently travel to the tropics and thus may be at risk of infection by one of the species of malaria parasite. PLHIV are not unlike other travelers who do not always adhere with travel recommendations for using bednets and taking appropriate prophylaxis, but the consequence of non-adherence may be more severe.

In areas endemic for both malaria and HIV the effects of co-infection continue to be studied.  In western Kenya Rutto and co-workers report that, “HIV-1 status was not found to have effect on malaria infection, but the mean malaria parasite density was significantly higher in HIV-1 positive than the HIV-1 negative population.” So do malaria prevention and treatment interventions mitigate any of these problems?

Co-infection is not the only shared problem of these two diseases in areas where both are endemic. Yeatman et al. reported that, “In malaria-endemic contexts, where acute HIV symptoms are commonly mistaken for malaria, early diagnostic HIV testing and counseling should be integrated into health care settings where people commonly seek treatment for malaria.”

Mozambique has updated its guidelines for managing anemia among HIV-infected persons. The updated “guidelines for management of HIV-associated anemia prompts clinicians to consider opportunistic conditions, adverse drug reactions, and untreated immunosuppression in addition to iron deficiency, intestinal helminthes, and malaria.” Brentlinger and colleagues concluded that the guidelines are valuable in helping clinicians address anemia through a variety of interventions.

In areas where anti-retroviral treatment may be delayed, use of long lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs) might help. Again in Kenya, Verguet and fellow researchers conducted a cost analysis and concluded that, “Provision of LLIN and water filters could be a cost-saving and practical method to defer time to ART eligibility in the context of highly resource-constrained environments experiencing donor fatigue for HIV/AIDS programs.”

Introduction of universal cotrimoxazole prophylaxis for all HIV positive patients in Uganda is seen to have a positive effect on reducing malaria infections among HIV positive patients. Rubaihayo and research partners found this effect as well as reported on several other studies with similar results.

One key overall lessons from these studies is the need to have integrated services for prevention, detection and management of both malaria and HIV. National health programs as well as global donors should make integrated service delivery a priority.

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