Assessment of the Proportion of Recent HIV-1 Infections in Newly-Diagnosed Cases in Ghana

Abstract

Accurate monitoring of epidemics is a key strategy for controlling human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) infection. To delineate the characteristics of newly diagnosed cases of HIV-1 infection, we assessed the proportion of recent HIV-1 infections using a recent infection-testing algorithm (RITA). In 2015, 248 cases were newly diagnosed with HIV infection at the Regional Hospital Koforidua, Ghana. Of these, 234 cases (94.4%) were infected with HIV-1 only, four (1.6%) were infected with HIV-2 only, and 10 (4.0%) were co-infected with HIV-1 and HIV-2. All HIV-1 single-seropositive samples were used in the HIV-1 LAg avidity assay for RITA. Our analysis revealed that 18 cases (7.7%) were recently infected, indicating that early diagnosis was not achieved in Ghana. This is the first report to assess the proportion of recent infections in Ghana using a biomarker approach. The accumulation of these data will contribute to the accurate estimation of HIV-1 incidence and prevalence in Ghana.

Keywords: Ghana; HIV-1; incidence; recent infection.