[Principal clinical manifestations during the course of disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Pointe-Noire (Republic of Congo). (307 cases hospitalized during 2 years at the medical service of the Regional Hospital of the Army)]

Abstract

At the sight of the hospitalization of 307 patients, attacked by AIDS, inside the department of Medicine of the Military Hospital in Pointe-Noire (Congo) between 1990-1992, the authors try to point out the principal epidemiological characteristics of their patients; give a semeiological and clinical descriptions of the key symptoms encountered; try to draw a scale depending on the apparition and frequency of the opportunistic infections. The great number of some diseases (tuberculosis, cryptococcal meningitidis, herpes zoster, diarrhea, neurologic complications ...) the more or less absence of others (pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) grant to Central Africa AIDS an undeniable originality compared to those of Europe and America. This analysis shows that a certain number of clinic signs in tropical area must attract the attention of the physician (facial palsy, herpes zoster, dementia, focal brain disorders), and so, to include the detection of AIDS, in the etiology of these affections.