Background: HIV - 2 infection is characterized by low sexual and vertical transmission and slow clinical and immunological progression. However, it can lead to AIDS. Viral load measurement is a predictive test of the success or failure of antiretroviral therapy. In
order to evaluate the efficacy of ARV treatment, we measured plasma viral load; and CD4 T - cell counts in 68 patients, of whom 56
were HIV - 2 infected and 12 were HIV - 1/HIV - 2 co - infected.
Method: We tested EDTA plasma samples stored at - 80 ° C, taken from patients followed in sentinel sites in the city of Ouagadougou.
The sera were obtained by centrifugation, and the plasmatic viral load quantified by droplet double polymerase chain reaction (dd
PCR), at a detection threshold of 10 copies/ml. Sociodemographic, clinical and therapeutic data were collected from patients charts
and completed during an interview.
Results: Patients had a mean age of 53.8 ± 7.8 years with extremes of [38 - 72 years] and were predominantly females (57.4%), with
a sex ratio of 0.80. There was a predominance of housewives and married couples with respectively 36.8% and 75.0% of patients.
The majority of patients (77.9%) were Category A, that is, they were either asymptomatic or in the primary infection phase. 22.0%
of patients were symptomatic, with 13.2% and 8.8% respectively belonging to categories B and C. The most observed opportunistic
infections were shingles found in 7.3% of patients, oral candidiasis found in 5.9%, signs of weight loss (undernutrition) in 5.9% and
genital herpes in 1.5% of patients. Four patients (4.7%) had hepatitis B. One case of tuberculosis (1.5%) was reported. The therapeutic combination of protease inhibitors (Lopinavir / ritonavir) was the most prescribed (94, 1% of patients); 58.8% of the patients had
a CD4 level < 500/mm3, and 41.2% had CD4 level ≥ 500 cells/mm3. Plasma viral load was undetectable (≤ 10 copies / ml) in 70.6%
of patients; 7.3% had a viral load of 10 to 50 copies / ml, and 19.1% of patients had a high viral load (≥ 101 copies / ml).
Our study showed that the highest CD4 levels are observed in patients with undetectable viral load (˂ 10copies / mL). This established that the CD4 cell count and the plasma viral load value move in the opposite direction, and are two predictors of the evolution
of HIV infection, and the virological and / or immunological respo

HIV-2; Viral Load; CD4 T Cells; Antiretroviral