HIV/AIDS among Palestinians: detection, clinical presentation, prognosis and HIV testing patterns, 1994–2010

Summary Objectives To describe the detection, clinical presentation, and prognosis of West Bank and East Jerusalem Palestinians infected with HIV/AIDS, and HIV testing patterns of Palestinians in the Jerusalem area. Design and methods This was a case–control analysis comparing all 33 Palestinian HIV/AIDS patients who were referred to the Hadassah AIDS Center (HAC) over 17 years (1994–2010) with 77 non-Palestinian patients seen over the same period. The systematic sampling method was used to select the control group. Patterns of HIV testing were observed for the years 2002 and 2007. Results Many Palestinian patients (36%) were diagnosed during their initial hospitalization, while 47.1% of non-Palestinians were diagnosed as outpatients. Significantly more opportunistic infections were detected during diagnosis among Palestinians (48.5%) than among non-Palestinians (9.1%, p p 3 and log 4.58 copies/ml vs. 271/mm 3 and log 4.49 copies/ml, respectively). Follow-up visits were more infrequent among Palestinians than among non-Palestinians: 9.8 (± 1.0) compared with 23.4 (± 12.9), respectively ( p p Conclusion These results show that despite an overall small number of Palestinian HIV/AIDS patients, late diagnosis and high mortality are very much in evidence.