Author(s): Mohd Shabeed C, S Alam, T Shahab, A Malik
The present study was conducted in children and adolescents aged 0 – 15 years with chronic diarrhea attending Pediatric OPD, Gastroenterology Clinic or admitted in Pediatric or Diarrhea ward. Children, who were later diagnosed as celiac disease or disaccharidase deficiency, were excluded from the study. After informed consent from parents/attendants, 4 ml of venous blood was drawn from a peripheral vein using all aseptic precaution and collected in a sterile vial. All samples were subjected to initial screening by the ELISA based test for detection of HIV antibodies. The second test used was immunocomb II obtained from Organics (Israel). Analysis of report was done according to strategy II of National AIDS Control Organization recommendations. Of the 95 blood samples collected, one child came out to be HIV seropositive making the prevalence of 1.05%. We conclude that prevalence of HIV seropositivity is low in chronic diarrhea cases in this part of the country.